Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero met the Pope's representative on Thursday to discuss relations between the Catholic Church and the government ahead of national elections next month.

The Catholic Church raised tempers in the ruling Socialist party after bishops slammed laws on divorce and abortion at a mass rally in December.

Relations were further strained when the Catholic Church's governing body in Spain urged Spaniards in January not to vote for political parties that negotiate with violent Basque separatists ETA, a direct hit at the Socialists.

Zapatero's government ended peace talks after less than a year in 2006 with the guerrillas after ETA, which wants independence for Basque territories in Spain and France, bombed a Madrid airport car park, killing two people.

Zapatero met the Vatican's envoy in Spain, Manuel Monteiro de Castro, to discuss church-government relations.

A government spokeswoman declined to say on Thursday which party initially extended the invitation.

The Church has frequently spoken out against the legalisation of gay marriage and the reduced importance of religion in the school curriculum, both reforms carried out by the government.

Tensions between the Catholic Church and Spanish Socialists date back to the Spanish Civil War when the Church closely aligned itself with the right and the army of subsequent dictator Francisco Franco.

Spain has become less Catholic since the death of Franco in 1975 and the return of democracy, with church attendance falling and attitudes to sex and marriage becoming more liberal.

A Catholic commentator said on Wednesday he saw the meeting as little more than a photo opportunity for Zapatero to reassure Catholic voters that rifts had been healed.

"The prime minister is looking for an election picture with the Church to lessen the confrontational atmosphere and to show relations with the church are not as bad as one might think," Rafael Miner, editor of the Catholic newspaper Semanario Alba told Reuters.