The faithful are standing up to the increase in religious persecution in Cuba and Nicaragua

The violent attacks on the religious by the socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Nicaragua have only served to strengthen the faith of the persecuted.

Arturo McFields Yescas explains in an Op-Ed in The Hill:

Religious persecution in Cuba and Nicaragua revitalizes the faith of the people

The dictatorships of Cuba and Nicaragua are leading one of the most vicious attacks on religious freedom in the Americas. Both regimes reportedly total more than 1,400 attacks on preachers and parishioners. Its goal is apparently to strangle the prophetic voice of the church, but for some reason the effect has been the opposite. The courage of the religious leaders has aroused the massive admiration of advocates and agnostics.

Since 2018, Nicaragua has accumulated 410 attacks on religious freedom. The desecration of temples, the murder of a 15-year-old altar boy and the arrest of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, are part of the endless string of brutal incidents.

Cuba, the mother of Latin American dictatorships, reportedly registered 1,030 attacks on religious freedom in 2022. The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights indicates that espionage, harassment, summons and forced exile have not managed to break faith.

Why the attack on the church?

The church has a power that dictatorships do not understand or control. The impoverishment and abuses caused by tyrants are denounced by the church with a voice that crosses borders and mocks censorship. Autocrats see it as a powerful and dangerous threat.

Father Alberto Reyes, priest of the Archdiocese of Camagüey, has called for real freedom of expression and denounced the regime’s censorship policies. “I dream of a country where there is religious freedom, which is not reduced to the fact that believers can meet in our temples to worship the God who brings us together.” Words like this feed the faith and hope of a people who have suffered a long-standing 64-year dictatorship.

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