POPE & CUBA
Pope's visit to Cuba should not be billed as pilgrimage — it's offensive
BY SYLVIA G. IRIONDO
marporcuba@aol.com
G o to so much shame? Others can. We cannot! — José Martí
On the occasion of the celebration of the Jubilee Year of the 400th
anniversary of the apparition of the image of Our Lady of Charity,
patron saint of Cuba, in the Bay of Nipe, Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled
to travel to Cuba between March 26 and 28.
Once again we are confronting the actions of a Catholic hierarchy in
Miami — represented by Archbishop Thomas Wenski — intent on serving as a
travel agent and catalyst of the false projection of normalcy in a
country where nothing is normal, where nothing essential has changed and
where power arbitrarily remains in the hands of an illegitimate
communist regime that continues to violate each and every one of its
citizens' human rights.
Previously, for the visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba in 1998, a
"cruise" initiative was launched and ultimately cancelled after several
Catholic voices from our exile community — our group's among them — rose
up with irrefutable arguments against it, and some of us held meetings
with Cardinal O'Connor in New York, among others, given the incongruity
of this pilgrimage.
Now, 14 years later, Archbishop Wenski, currently the maximum authority
of our church in Miami — city of victims that harbors the suffering and
decorum of the exiled Cuban nation — has fully dedicated himself to the
promotion and organization of the ill-named "pilgrimage of
reconciliation" to the island to coincide with the pope's visit, once
again fomenting the division between Catholics within our exile community.
Acceptance of the conditions of the pilgrimage constitutes a humiliation
and shows a lack of respect to the dignity of Cubans. The Castro regime
controls and approves those who can visit the island. Obviously there is
no room within the "pilgrimage" for Cubans openly critical of the Castro
brothers' dictatorship to show solidarity towards political prisoners,
the Ladies in White, or human rights' activists. Everyone who goes needs
an entry visa to the country where they were born and have to be
subjected to the official agenda imposed by the regime under the
complacent gaze of Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino.
The name given to this undertaking, "pilgrimage of reconciliation,"
constitutes by itself a distortion of the sad Cuban reality, which
problem does not lie in the "reconciliation" of Cuban exiles with Cubans
on the island — we are one people — but rather emanates from the urgent
necessity of establishing a rule of law, with justice and freedom, which
we have the duty to defend and the commitment to achieve.
While this takes place on this side of the Straits of Florida, over
there on the island, under a brutal repressive climate, the attitude of
the ecclesiastic hierarchy, with honorable exceptions, has been one of
accommodation with the oppressors and not with the victims of the
longest dictatorship of our hemisphere.
In exchange for some concessions that precisely ratify the totalitarian
nature of the regime, they have given preference to interests over
sacred principles. The way in which ecclesiastical authorities on the
island have made pronouncements or failed to do so, preferring the
accomplice's silence to the proclamation of the truth, is incompatible
with the Christian values of the religion for which so many Cuban
martyrs died executed by the Castro firing squads exclaiming, "Long Live
Christ the King!"
The ecclesiastic hierarchy has undertaken a media campaign supported by
a small group, with the objective that Cubans "reconcile" with their
executioners and go down the path indicated by the president of the
Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba and Archbishop of Santiago,
Dionisio García, in recent statements to a European news media, that it
is necessary to foster an attitude of "accepting the other, accepting
what the other thinks, what the other states, what the other is, and how
the other sees the reality of things."
Accept the murderers that continue to murder with impunity?
Accept the torturers that continue torturing Cuban political prisoners
and the state security agents that continue savagely beating the Ladies
in White and women of the resistance?
Accept the infamy of evil that keeps marching forward without any
remorse whatsoever through a land that thirsts for rights and freedom?
Accept censorship and slavery?
Accept the reality of a totalitarian dictatorship that for more than
half a century has repressed and continues to repress the Cuban people?
Accept traveling to our homeland as foreigners and giving up meeting
with the victims of oppression?
Paraphrasing Martí: Go to so much shame? Others can. We cannot!!
Sylvia G. Iriondo is president of Mothers & Women against Repression,
M.A.R. por Cuba.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/18/2697752/popes-visit-to-cuba-should-not.html
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