So Pope Francis arrived in the U.S. on Tuesday after spending four days in Cuba. The Washington Post recapped his visit to the island paradise ~
(D)espite a warming of relations with the Vatican and the United States, the Communist dictatorship continues to suppress free speech, political dissent and other human rights. Yet by the end of his third day, the pope had said or done absolutely nothing that might discomfit his official hosts.
Pope Francis met with 89-year-old Fidel Castro, who holds no office in Cuba, but not with any members of the dissident community — in or outside of prison. According to the Web site 14ymedio.com, two opposition activists were invited to greet the pope at Havana’s cathedral Sunday but were arrested on the way. Dozens of other dissidents were detained when they attempted to attend an open air Mass. They needn’t have bothered: The pope said nothing in his homily about their cause, or even political freedom more generally. Those hunting for a message had to settle for a cryptic declaration that “service is never ideological.”
The “opposition activists” were members of the Ladies in White, wives and relatives of imprisoned political dissents. It’s been reported that these women have actually been banned from attending Catholic mass in Cuba (see my July 20th post). So as the Post intimates, I’m not sure the pope was particularly concerned about their detention this week.
“The Holy Father visits Cuba as a missionary of mercy, but he has not spoken about human rights … without respect for human rights, nothing the Pope urged for in his homily can be achieved,” Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White group, said following her release.
Source: Breitbart
Father Alberto Cutié, a Cuban-American, former Catholic priest, now an Episcopal priest had some words of reproval for the pope. He expressed his disappointment with the Francis’ seeming indifference to the victims of Castro’s persecution in a letter which was published in the Spanish language El Nuevo Herald. Cutié had three specific questions for the pontiff ~
▪ If we really want to help the poor, why ignore those suffering the great poverty of lack of freedom and, just because they somehow express their despair, claiming that their most basic human rights be respected, they are detained, harassed and beaten by the Castro regime? Every day young Cubans arriving on our shores -and countless others never get here alive- looking for that freedom.
▪ Is it more important to have diplomatic relations with a country that has not had free elections in over 50 years, that mistreats its people, and has a very well-documented track record of ongoing oppression and even robing church properties, than to seek justice, the common good and the longed for freedom of all Cubans?
Thus far, Obama’s move to normalize relations with the Cuban communists is working out splendidly- NOT ~
U.S. exports to Cuba, controlled by Havana, have declined this year, while arrests of opponents have increased, along with refugees. Many Cubans are trying to reach the United States ahead of what they fear will be a move by the Obama administration to placate the regime with a tightening of asylum rules.
The pope’s visit won’t change a thing either. If he and the president were truly concerned about the welfare of the Cuban people they would denounce the Castro regime and the country’s bankrupt communist system.
(But don’t hold your breath ~ The President & the Pope share a twisted worldview)
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Related:
Miami Priest to Pope Francis: Why Condemn Capitalism So Strongly, but Not Communism? ~ Breitbart on the pope’s Cuban visit and Cutié’s letter ~
Raúl Castro added to the legacy of left-wing despots giving Pope Francis questionable presents on Tuesday, offering him a large crucifix in which Jesus can be seen hanging from oars, which many interpret as either an homage to or mockery of the thousands of balseros, or rafters, who have risked and lost their lives to flee Castro and start a new life in the United States. Under Fidel Castro, it was not uncommon for the Cuban coast guard to attack the makeshift vessels Cubans used to flee; in the most prominent such case, the Cuban government intentionally drowned 37 men, women, and children attempting to flee to America.
The Cuban Archipelago ~ Jamie Glazov details the Castro regime’s horrific treatment of dissidents ~
Half a million human beings have passed through Cuba’s Gulag. Since Cuba’s total population is only around eleven million, that gives Castro’s despotism the highest political incarceration rate per capita on earth. There have been more than fifteen thousand executions by firing squad. Torture has been institutionalized; myriad human-rights organizations have documented the regime’s use of electric shock, dark coffin-sized isolation cells, and beatings to punish “anti-socialist elements.”
