“Viva Cristo Rey!” was what many of the Catholic youths murdered by the Castro regime’s firing squads yelled the instant before the bullets tore them apart. The cry from these valiant Cuban youths ( most in their early 20’s) finally got so unnerving for the firing squads that the Stalinist executioners started taping their mouths shut.
Raul Castro (who hosted the Pope at this mass) and Che Guevara ( whose visage formed the backdrop for the mass) were the most notorious executioners during the early years of the Cuban Revolution.
“The defiant yells (“Viva Cristo Rey!”—“Viva Cuba Libre!”) from the bound and staked martyrs “would make the walls of La Cabana prison tremble!” wrote eyewitness to the slaughter, Armando Valladares, who suffered 22 torture-filled years in Castro’s prisons and was later appointed by Ronald Reagan as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
Given their defiance even during their last seconds alive, by mid 1961 the mere binding and blindfolding of Castro and Che’s murder victims wasn’t enough. Pope Francis’ gracious host this week now began ordering that the Catholic youths also be gagged. The shaken firing-squads demanded it. The yells were badly unnerving the trigger-pullers, you see.
So now, as Pope Francis’ gracious host’s henchmen yanked the young Catholic heroes from the cells, bent their arms back, and bound their hands, two more Communist guards came into play. One grabbed the struggling victim’s hair and jerked his head back, trying to steady him. The other taped his mouth shut.
https://townhall.com
No, they don’t have a clue. Their “free” education has definitely NOT included any information to that effect, and state media has never reported anything of the sort.
Che’s grim visage is bound (and meant) to dominate any photo of any event in this location. Maybe the pope really cannot gauge or read the symbolism properly, especially if he holds a standard Latrine view of his countryman, in which case he would have had no major problem with this venue for his principal mass in Cuba. Still, he has to know that Che is a symbol for the Castro regime, which clearly uses him as such. Since the papal visit is supposed to be for the benefit of the Cuban people, shouldn’t it be very important to take their views and feelings into account, no matter how big an icon Che may be for the Latrine world? In other words, how could it be so hard to understand that this sort of thing is abominably offensive?