An encouraging signal from Havana’s Archbishop

There is hope that after Archbishop Juan de la Caridad García’s meeting with representatives of the Ladies in White, that he will usher in a new era of tolerance by speaking out against the injustices committed by the regime against the Cuban people.

Via Diario de Cuba:

Editorial: The Catholic Church takes a good step

   OPINION Editorial: The Catholic Church takes a good step DDC | Madrid | 20 de Febrero de 2017 - 09:41 CET. | 0 Archivado enCuba Damas de Blanco Derechos Humanos Editorial Iglesia Católica Juan de la Caridad García Facebook logo Twitter logo Google+ logo LinkedIn logo The Archbishop of Havana, Juan de la Caridad Garcia.
The Archbishop of Havana, Juan de la Caridad Garcia.

Ever since the trip to Cuba taken by Pope John Paul II, the Cuban Catholic Church’s dedication to the defense of human rights has clearly been insufficient. Understandably, some have come to describe this failure as constituting collusion with the dictatorship, especially during the years and years under Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, who decided to advance the Church’s position on the Island at the expense of not denouncing the social, political and economic crisis induced by the dictatorship. Ortega Alamino even went so far as to deny the existence of political prisoners in Cuba, and to serve as a spokesman for the regime in various international forums.

While Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba yielded few advances in the struggle for human rights, that by Pope Francis was downright regrettable, with the pontiff solely focused on repairing relations between Cuba and the US, without even acknowledging the main problems haunting the country: the lack of freedom and permanent violations of human rights.

On Wednesday, however, the current Archbishop of Havana, Juan de la Caridad Garcia, received representatives of the Ladies in White and spoke with them, thereby sending an encouraging signal.

Hopefully this dialogue will help to lessen the harassment this group of women regularly receives from civil society, and the Catholic Church, without renouncing its ecclesiastical work and promotion of the faith, will speak out regarding the injustices suffered by the Cuban people at the regime’s hands.

The trail blazed by Archbishop Juan de la Caridad García must be trod again in the near future, for the sake of the Catholic Church, and for the good of the Cuban people, both believers and nonbelievers.

3 thoughts on “An encouraging signal from Havana’s Archbishop”

  1. Time will tell, but this could turn out to be a “good cop” act to Cardinal Ortega’s bad cop, and it may yield little or no real improvement. By this point, I simply don’t believe in words or surface appearances when it comes to the Catholic hierarchy, not in Cuba and certainly not in Rome. Its track record is much too dubious for anything but skepticism, if not outright mistrust. The first thing that is absolutely required is scrupulous avoidance of any conduct that scandalizes the Cuban people, because a great deal of very serious damage has been done in that department. Thus, if it looks, sounds, and acts like collaboration with the Castro evil, nobody cares if it’s well-intentioned or playing along to get along. In other words, don’t presume to “manage” or outmaneuver the devil or make deals with it, and don’t insult the intelligence of Cubans, who’ve been screwed so many times that they can smell betrayal a very long way off.

  2. Let’s say the Ladies in White are allowed to march more or less peacefully, but nothing is done about their reasons for doing so. Cosmetic “tolerance” for purely PR purposes would be no different from the much-ballyhooed “tolerance” of gay Cubans who play along with Mariela Castro and follow her lead. As long as the basic human rights of all Cubans continue to be ignored and violated systematically and routinely, as they always have been during the Castro era, it is beyond fatuous to talk about “tolerance” for religion or gays.

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