La gran tragedia olvidada

La muerte del niñito sirio Aylan, ahogado en los mares de Turquía durante la estampida de un pueblo aterrado por la guerra y el desamparo, ha desatado una reacción mundial de compasión, misericordia y acción inmediata de apoyo a los desvalidos. Fue un terrible accidente producto de un éxodo dislocado.

Pero cuando no se trata de un accidente, sino que barcos cubanos provocaron una desgracia al hundir intencionalmente el remolcador 13 de Marzo, en el que un grupo de más de setenta cubanos huía de la tiranía del gobierno apenas habían rebasado la boca del puerto de La Habana, la salvajada es inexcusable.

De manera sucinta: el remolcador fue embestido el 14 de julio de 1994 por los remolcadores del estado cubano Polero #1 y Polero #5 a la vez que barrían la cubierta con chorros de agua que lanzaron al mar a un numeroso grupo, sin importarles a los agresores los gritos de las madres que mostraban a los niños durante el ataque y pedían clemencia, mientras que otros prófugos quedaban atrapados en la bodega.

Murieron ahogados 10 niños y 27 adolescentes y adultos de un total de cerca de 70 personas que habían resuelto escapar del acoso del régimen de Cuba. El resto fue rescatado por los perpetradores gracias a la presencia de un barco griego que navegaba por esas aguas.

Las naciones y sus pueblos civilizados no se dieron por enterados del asesinato. Nadie más que los cubanos dignos lloraron sus muertes. Irónica y desvergonzadamente, hoy esas naciones le rinden la mayor pleitesía a ese régimen tiránico.

Cuban dissidents long to hear Pope Francis preach religious liberty

Although U.S. remains shamefully silent about Cuban suppression of speech and worship, Pope Francis should speak up while world listens.

Like any pair of dictator-bullies, the Castro brothers can freely make jokes and speak about others, but will detain, beaten up, censor or imprison anyone who dares to do the same about them. This should come as no surprise. Fidel’s first dictatorial act against free journalism came in 1959 when he started by muzzling, not the main newspaper of Cuba, but Zig-Zag, the weekly Cuban version of Mad magazine, which had dared to run its first (and last) cartoon of Fidel.

Apparently this kind of free speech is something we as Americans should no longer find worthy of defense in Cuba.  While we rightly grieved in solidarity with many nations for the murdered cartoonists and journalists of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, inspiring “Je suis” pins, posters and Facebook postings, our government has remained silent when Cuban journalists, artists and writers have been censored and imprisoned.

For instance, mum has been the word when it comes to the arrest of young Cuban graffiti artist, “El Sexto.” According to reports smuggled out of Cuba, El Sexto, who has a wife and infant daughter, was imprisoned last December on a charge of contempt for having tried to carry out a performance with two pigs painted with the names of “Fidel” and “Raul.” Months after his arrest he has not been taken before a court. A few weeks ago according to his mother, he went on a hunger strike.  

Pope Francis appeases the Castros in repressive Cuba

IN HIS visit to the United States beginning Tuesday, Pope Francis will meet not just President Obama and Congress but also those marginalized by our society: homeless people, immigrants, refugees and even the inmates of a jail. He’s expected to raise topics that many Americans will find challenging, such as his harsh critique of capitalism. His supporters say it’s all part of the role the pope has embraced as an advocate for the powerless, one that has earned him admiration from both Catholics and some outside the church.

How, then, to explain Pope Francis’s behavior in Cuba? The pope is spending four days in a country whose Communist dictatorship has remained unrelenting in its repression of free speech, political dissent and other human rights despite a warming of relations with the Vatican and the United States. 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.”

Sadly, this appeasement of power is consistent with the Vatican’s approach to Cuba ever since Raúl Castro replaced his brother in 2006. Led by Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the church committed to a strategy of working with the regime in the hope of encouraging its gradual moderation. The results have been slight. Cardinal Ortega obtained Raúl Castro’s promise to release all political prisoners, but arrests have continued and dissident groups say the number of jailed is now above 70. One leading Christian dissident, Oswaldo Payá, was killed in a suspicious 2012 auto crash.

The Vatican’s greatest success has been the adoption of its strategy by the Obama administration, which has also restored relations with the Castros while excluding the political opposition. Here, too, there have been disappointing results. 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.

Pope Francis may believe that merely by touring the country he will inspire Cubans to become more active and press the regime for change. But two previous papal visits, in 1998 and 2012, did not have that effect. By now it is clear that the Castros won’t be moved by quiet diplomacy or indirect hints. A direct campaign of words and acts, like that Pope Francis is planning for the United States, would surely have an impact. But then, it takes more fortitude to challenge a dictatorship than a democracy.

By Editorial Board of The Washington Post

Del día en que la Iglesia excomulgó a los comunistas

El decreto pertenece a la que entonces era conocida como Congregación del Santo Oficio, y hoy se llama Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe. Lleva fecha de 1 de julio de 1949, corren los tiempos del Papa Pío XII. Era secretario de la Congregación, que hoy se llamaría prefecto, Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani.

            Difundido entonces por la Radio del Vaticano y publicado en España con algún retraso (la fotografía pertenece a la edición del 15 de julio), por ABC, su texto en español reza como sigue: 

    “A esta Suprema Sagrada Congregación le ha sido preguntado lo siguiente:

            Primero: ¿Es lícito inscribirse en los partidos comunistas o favorecerlos?

            Los eminentísimos y reverendísimos padres que tienen  su cargo la defensa de lo que ataca a la fe y a las costumbres, habiendo escuchado el voto de los reverendísimos consultores,, decretaron en sesión plenaria en cuarto lugar que se debía responder “no”, porque el comunismo es materialista y anticristiano, y sus jefes, aunque de palabra digan algunas veces que ellos no combaten la religión, sin embargo de hecho o con la doctrina, o con las obras, se muestran enemigos de Dios, de la verdadera religión y de la Iglesia de Jesucristo.

            Segundo: ¿Es lícito publicar, propagar o leer libros, periódicos, diarios, folletos, etc. que favorezcan la doctrina y las actividades comunistas o escribir en ellos?

            Contestación de la Congregación del Santo Oficio: No, como cosa que está prohibida por el derecho mismo.

            Tercero: ¿Pueden ser admitidos a la recepción de los santos sacramentos aquellos fieles que conscientes y libremente hayan realizado aquellos actos de los que hablan los números 1 y 2?

            Contestación de la Congregación del Santo Oficio: No, de acuerdo con los principios ordinarios sobre la anulación de los Santos Sacramentos a quien no itene las disposiciones necesarias para recibirlos.

            Cuarto: los fieles que profesan la doctrina comunista y principalmente los que la defienden y propagan, ¿incurren ipso facto en la excomunión reservada especialmente a la Sede Apostólica, como apóstatas de la fe católica?

            Contestación de la Congregación del Santo Oficio: Si”.

Religión en Libertad: religionenlibertad.com

^©L.A.