Nor the Fourth Amendments protections against unreasonable searches (so you need a valid pretext for snooping around someones sex life, though admittedly this can be a hard sell for many conservatives. )

Precisely; as long he's consistent I can respect his position whether or not I agree with it (conveniently, I do agree on these issues, but that has zero bearing on doctrine). What's frustrating is when good Catholic friends fall back on canon law to oppose abortion but completely ignore doctrine when defending capital punishment. There's nothing wrong, in principle, with cherry picking which parts of Catholic doctrine you accept; there's even a word for it: Protestantism. Applying the same rule when it suits you and then ignoring it when it doesn't though is just basic hypocrisy, IMHO, and I believe most Christian denominations are pretty clear that's unacceptable.

Yeah, I seem to recall hearing something about how Pope Benedict gets annoyed at you US Catholics for precisely that reason. Yet it often seems to me that US Catholics do a better job than most at balancing conflicting obligations there. Bottom line is Pope Benedict has as much right as anyone to his opinion, though the Spanish government has an equal right to dismiss it. Famous people are still people.