Democratic transitions have recently become a topic of great discussion among political scholars as the domino effect of democratization began in Latin America in the 1970s and continued into Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. In many of these transitions, the Catholic Church[1] played a crucial role as protector of civil society during periods of communist and right-wing authoritarian rule, as well as taking an active role in promoting the establishment of democracy (Bruneau 1994, Levine 1980, Stepan and Linz 1996, Peréz-Díaz 1993, Ramet 1987). Although the political role of the Church in the transition is important, significantly fewer scholars have explored how democracy affected the Catholic Church in the national context (Eberts 1998, Ramet 1999, Vilarino and Tizon 1998). Even fewer have attempted cross-national comparisons of the Church, thus allowing generalizations to be made about the political influence of the Church since the establishment of democratic government (Casanova 1993, Gill et al. 1998). With the establishment of democracy the Church was expected to prosper, thanks to its organizational and political advantage within the new democracies. However, initial research suggests otherwise. Using Church involvement in abortion policy as an indicator of political influence, it is clear that the cases of Spain, Brazil and Poland vary widely. The Polish Church retained the greatest political influence, followed by the Brazilian and Spanish Churches (Neilsen 1991, Volenski and Gryzmala-Mosczynska 1997, Gautier 1998, Casanova 1993, Linz 1991, Morris 1993). In Brazil and Poland, the Church played an instrumental role in the democratic revolution, making a political decline of the Church almost inconceivable. While initially the...... half of the document......ee is considered a permanent observer of a non-member state which allows it to occasionally participate in the discussions and decisions of the General Assembly and to participate in International Conferences of the United Nations. The Holy See, however, does not have the right to vote.[3] Secularization refers to the number of clergy who have disaffiliated from the Church (i.e. the transition from ecclesiastical to civilian).[4] The theology of Vatican II «underlined a very different conception of the Church as the people of God, assigned a more important role to the laity, redefined the authority of the Pope over the entire Church and of the bishops over the diocese» (Mainwaring 1986). Vatican II theology emphasized the need for social justice and committed to helping the less fortunate, which became known as the option for the poor.[5] The Roman Curia is the set of ministries intended for the government of the International Church (Della Cava 1993).