SPAIN’S political and social transformation after the Madrid bombings, which unseated a conservative government a year ago, continued yesterday when a moderate bishop replaced a hardliner as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Ricardo Blázquez, Bishop of Bilbao, was elected president of the bishops’ conference after Antonio María Rouco Varela, his precessor, failed by one vote to win the two-thirds majority needed for a third term.

Mgr Rouco Varela was the Vatican’s preference and has come into conflict repeatedly with the Socialist Government in the past year, during which it has legalised gay marriage, made divorce simpler and eased rules for stem-cell research.

The reform programme has drawn sharp criticism from the Pope, who said that he was concerned about a possible restriction of religious freedom in Spain. The Socialists responded by summoning the Papal Ambassador to voice their surprise.

The episcopal conference gathers every three years to elect its head and, while the decision is usually influenced by the Pope’s wishes, this year Basque and Catalan prelates — unhappy with Mgr Rouco Varela’s management — were seen to conspire against Castille, the traditional heartland of the Spanish Church.

Bishop Blázquez won 40 of 77 votes in a second round of voting in which he needed a simple majority rather than the two-thirds majority needed by the incumbent. Immediately he pledged to co-operate with the Government and called for a new period of dialogue.

His election was welcomed by José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister, who said: “I am in favour of the change, for obvious reasons.”

While the new chief may ease Church-State tensions, he is also likely to assist Señor Zapatero’s ambitions to reach a new political settlement with the Basques, in which Madrid will have to cede further powers to one of Europe’s most autonomous regions. The Basque regional government is pushing ahead with plans that barely stop short of independence.

As Bishop of Bilbao in the troubled Basque Country, he was one of several priests who objected to a law banning Batasuna, the political wing of Eta, the Basque terrorist group.

That brought him into conflict with José María Aznar, the former Prime Minister from the conservative Popular Party. Bishop Blázquez said that he would work to “co-operate towards peace among the Basque people, in Basque society”. Although 95 per cent of Spaniards are nominally Catholic, liberal attitudes increasingly prevail and church attendance, particularly among the young, is low.

Mgr Rouco Varela, a cardinal, is a fundamentalist.

Recently he described the inhabitants of Madrid as “massive sinners”. Bishop Blázquez, on the other hand, was seen as a man of consensus, Jésus de las Heras, information director of the bishops’ conference, said. In October last year Madrid rejected an offer from him to mediate in discussions between the Government and Eta.

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