Friday, April 18, 2008

Shielding Pedophiles and Defending Communists, the Pope's Mission in America

Pope Benedict XVI is busy lamenting the predations of his priests on innocent children after allowing as John Paul's doctrinal enforcer their crimes to be concealed and unpunished for 20 years. Even today the most notorious of the episcopal enablers, Bernard Cardinal Law, former Archbishop of Boston, is in residence at the Vatican, protected from the legal consequences of his actions. Rafzinger's successor as papal lacquey, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, has been entrusted by the now pope with a mission as sordid and anti-Christian, namely, the "pacification" of the Cuban people, whose cries for freedom, democracy and justice he transmutes as calls for the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo and elimination of human rights sanctions on the regime.

I do not know what the reaction of the Cuban people will be to Castro's accomplices in the Vatican and the Cuban hierarchy once freedom is restored to the island. I hope, at least, that they will remember them as enemies of (their) freedom and human rights. They could do no less.

I do know what Cuban exiles should do. What we should have done years ago when John Paul II visited Miami and went out of his way to show his contempt for Cuban exiles, who stood, in respect to Communism, no differently from him and should have been embraced by him as natural allies. Instead, he visited the Vizcaya Palace but refused to set foot in the shrine to Our Lady of Charity, Patroness of Cuba, which Cuban exiles had erected in its vicinity. As fate would have it, John Paul passed within 10 ft. of the shrine but did not even cross himself (he had other things to do with his hands, such as grasp Castro's). This is the pope who publicly expressed his admiration for "Che" Guevara in Cuba; praised Castro's "social achievements" at the public reception for Communist Cuba's new ambassador to the Holy See; and had a hand in liberating all the Western countries from Communism (Catholic and non-Catholic) except Cuba.

Only recently Cardinal Bertone confirmed that the slight had been intentional on John Paul's part since ignoring Cuban exiles (Castro's victims, too) is the official Vatican policy.

Our answer to that policy should be: to ignore them too. This is what Cuban Catholics should have done then and should still do. NOT A CENT. Not one cent more to the enablers and apologists of Fidel Castro's regime. That's what will hurt these putrid men because that is all they care about.

Martí said that "Christianity died at the hands of Catholicism." Fortunately, not all of Christianity. But every last trace of it has been extinguished at the Vatican.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, so let me get this right. The Cuban exiles hate

1) JFK
2) MLK
3) LBJ
4) Mandela
5) Bobby Kennedy

and now the Pope


LOL!!

JMP said...

Cuba/Pope discussed in today's WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120847859388924899.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Cuba and the Vatican
By ARMANDO VALLADARES
April 18, 2008; Page A16

Pope Benedict XVI is in the midst of the first journey to America of his pontificate, and he met with President George W. Bush this week. Hopefully this visit will reinforce the need for a joint commitment to freedom in Cuba.

The Catholic Church has taken a hardline position against right-wing dictatorships. But in Cuba, the Church has been silent – or worse – ever since 1960, when Fidel Castro expelled hundreds of Catholic priests because they alerted their parishioners of the communist danger surfacing in government circles.
[Pope Benedict XVI]

In one especially shameful episode in the 1980s, Ventura, Cipriano and Eugenio García Marín and their mother entered the nunciature in Havana to ask for political asylum. Two days later they saw several priests get out of a black limousine. They were special troops from Castro's political police who entered the Holy See's diplomatic mission with the authorization and complicity of the pope's diplomats in Havana. The three brothers were executed, and their mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Cardinal Tarsicio Bertone's visit to Cuba this February was a different kind of outrage. In statements by the Vatican secretary of state, published by L'Osservatore Romano shortly after the cardinal's visit, the cardinal is quoted saying, contrary to historical fact, that Cuba's Catholic Church is not a "persecuted Church." He also described Cuba's universities as "renowned centers of higher education." In reality, they are sophisticated factories of atheism and apostasy.

The cardinal also said: "As we all know, Cuba's crucial problems are due to the embargo imposed by the U.S. and the economic sanctions of the European Union which slow down its development." The Vatican's chief diplomat appears to have forgotten that for almost 50 years the "crucial problem" of Cuba has been the communist regime.

Cardinal Bertone stated that the Vatican wants to encourage a dialogue between Washington and Havana that could "turn the page" in the antagonistic relations between the two governments. He added that this dialogue was also "the expectation of Cuba's president," Raul Castro. He added that he "assured [Raul Castro] that the Holy See will work hard to obtain the elimination, or at least the amelioration of the sanctions."

By pressuring the U.S. to lift the embargo, Cardinal Bertone plays the sad role of an effective ambassador of Cuban communist diplomacy. He also subverts the appraisal of Cuba's real "crucial problems" when he denounces the external embargo, while remaining silent about a communist regime that muzzles and holds in misery 11 million souls.

After the cardinal's visit, Havana promptly announced a series of cosmetic "reforms," which include financial incentives for small farmers; permitting the sale of laptop computers and cellular phones; the eventual weakening of restrictions for Cubans to travel abroad; allowing Cubans to stay in hotels, most of which have been part of Fidel Castro's abominable "tourist apartheid"; and the signing of an international agreement on social and economic rights.

But these measures may be little more than tools to facilitate Havana's ad hoc ambassador's work in Washington. Furthermore, the regime could promptly rescind such measures, just as Fidel Castro discarded previous liberalizing reforms after hoodwinking naive foreigners.

The Vatican's diplomatic behavior helps prolong the agony of my sisters and brothers in Cuba, and creates a grave problem of conscience for loyal Cuban Catholics who expect better from the pope. It in no way diminishes their veneration to express respectful disappointment and even disagreement with the Vatican.

I pray that future developments will prove wrong the concerns of so many Cuban Catholics on the island and in exile. Both the pope and President Bush have immense responsibilities before God and the Cuban people. It is my most sincere hope that they will not forget Cubans' aspirations for freedom, peace and prosperity.

Mr. Valladares, chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, spent 22 years in Cuban political prisons and served as U.S. Representative before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva from 1987 to 1990.

Anonymous said...

Hey John!

"The Catholic Church has taken a hardline position against right-wing dictatorships. But in Cuba, the Church has been silent – or worse – ever since 1960, when Fidel Castro expelled hundreds of Catholic priests because they alerted their parishioners of the communist danger surfacing in government circles."

How to reconcile that the Catholic Church supports a godless, communist regime?

Cuban exiles also hate uninformed, unsophisticated, boorish louts!

JMP said...

Anon. wrote:

"Cuban exiles also hate uninformed, unsophisticated, boorish louts!"

You mean like John?

Haha, just kidding John. Cuban exiles should hate themselves hardest and most passionately because they turned tail and ran when Castro rolled into Havana.

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

john:

Cubans don't hate:

MLK

or

LBJ

In fact, we are rather fond of LBJ. THanks to him we are all here.

Anonymous said...

Mat,


I read in Babulu that all Democratic Presidents were to be hated, including LBJ. MLK is hated because he allegedly looked to the Soviet Union to help stop the racist from assinating him.


But if you say different, then i believe you. And will strike both LBJ and MLK from my data bank!!

Anonymous said...

I hear Nambla MAT

Anonymous said...

Mat, just remember how "they" sabotaged MCC!!

Anonymous said...

Amen.

Anonymous said...

) JFK
2) MLK
3) LBJ
4) Mandela
5) Bobby Kennedy

and now the Pope


LOL!!

And now NAMBLA , AMEN

Anonymous said...

I will erase all comments that contain sexual remarks. I will not allow anyone pervert to sabotage my blog.


i know the babalusians well, they are desperate..

Baba blog is going down

Anonymous said...

Mat,

You dont ever have to worry about me responding that type of chat from Babulu. As it is only designed to turn RCAB into a blog that contains discussions about crimes against children.


Those people are indeed godless!!

Anonymous said...

boring, next Mat

talk about Cuba please

Anonymous said...

Mat se ve que estas trabajando , pero sabes que aqui demuestras tu hipocresia, debes hacer eso con todo especialmente cuando los verdaderos chivatos revelan los nombres de ciertos cuban a bloggers y tu entiendes bien a que me refiero

eres un cerdo Mat

Manuel A.Tellechea said...

Anonymous @ 5:10:

The Madhouse is calling you. There you will find your little friends. And since you are daft enough not to be able to figure this out for yourself, it has two pages. Now, go there and enjoy cavorting with your obcenities.

Vana said...

John:

We don't hate LBJ or MLK, you can have JFK though.

About time the Pope addresses the rampant pedophilia in the Catholic Church, it's been long in coming.

Fantomas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fantomas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Manuel A.Tellechea said...

fantomas:

I got your e-mail.

Sharpshooter said...

MAT,
great post and in it you address clearly some of the reasons I have drifted away from the Catholic Church as a whole. I am still a Catholic, but with some reservations. The post is living proof of the quality of posts you are capable when you ignore the distraction that is Babalu. Wish you post things like this more often.
The position of the Catholic Church in Cuba is despicable and unworthy of it. Some day in the future they will have to explain their abyect and disgraceful behaviour at a time when their parishioners in Cuba needed them the most.
BTW, it seems you have been invaded by a few people who have a racist tint and a clear anti-Cuban agenda. But to each his own as they say. Now according to these so called experts on Cuba and its history (of which they know very little) we are a bunch of cowards and we are actually self haters. Will wonders ever cease!