Monday, April 02, 2012

Ratzinger could help pull down the Caribbean wall

Many Cubans were more hopeful about Joseph Ratzinger’s visit than they were about John Paul II’s in 1998. 

The reason for this is the increased weakness of the Castro dictatorship. 

Fourteen years ago Fidel was strong; today Raúl is not: he is a dull and uncharismatic copy of his brother. 

Cuba’s “Maximum Leader” obtained an outspoken condemnation of the U.S. embargo from John Paul II, while Benedict XVI recalled the need for a change of moral path and placed great emphasis on human rights, urging Christians to follow Christ devoid of any fears or complexes. Raúl’s attempt to use the Pope to attack the U.S. also failed.

The U.S. State Department had warned the Vatican that the regime would use Benedict XVI’s visit to protest against the embargo. 

This immediately materialised upon the Pope’s arrival in Santiago. 

Raúl Castro welcomed Benedict XVI with 21 gun salutes and went on to attack Washington for “the 53 years of hostility against the Cuban revolution,” denouncing the fact that “the U.S.’s political and economic embargo oppresses the island.” 

Despite this, Castro said, “Cuba is changing; it is broadening its horizons and enjoys good relations with the Church.” 

Benedict XVI, however, showed no signs of being intimidated by Raúl Castro’s words and said what he had planned to say, talking about his visit as a mission to open Cuba up to the world and the world up to Cuba, on behalf of “the legitimate aspirations and wishes of all Cubans, wherever they may be.” 

In his appeal against the repression of religious and civil freedom, he also echoed the distressed and inflamed expectations of expats in Florida who have been thundering against the Holy See’s “weakness” towards Castro. 

During his first mass celebration on the island where God has been rejected for half a century and the Catholic Church persecuted and deprived of religious freedom, Benedict XVI again suggested “a real theology of liberation, based on testimony of the faith and the freedom of those who open up to God,” the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions’ news agency stated.

Yesterday, just before the start of the Pope's mass, a man cried out: “Down with communism” and was taken away by the police. 

“Only a society that gives space to God becomes more human,” Benedict XVI pointed out, offering a golden rose to Our Lady of Charity - a wooden statuette dating back to the XVII century, that was found by some fishermen and exhibited in the square. 

“As Easter draws near, let us decide without fears of complexes to follow Jesus on his path towards the cross. Let us patiently and faithfully accept any misfortune or affliction. Let us do so in the conviction that through the resurrection He destroyed the forces of evil which cloud over everything, and created a new world, the world of God, light, truth and joy,” Benedict XVI said. 

The 200 thousand Cubans gathered in Antonio Maceo square, knew that the Pope was not there to lend himself to the propaganda of a withering regime.

The Caribbean wall is about to collapse and Cuba, the only lasting souvenir of the Cold War look like a repetition of the final days of Eastern Germany: a Caribbean-style “ostpolitik” that changed 20th century history, peacefully pulling down the Berlin Wall. 

Almost twenty years have passed since Wojtyla’s visit to the island and the Vatican has frequently voiced its condemnation of the embargo. 

Nevertheless, bishops are still forbidden to exercise their office publicly. 

Faith barely leaves the sacristy, despite the heroic daily testimony of Cuban priests whom the Pope thanked, in a tone echoing that used last century for priests beyond the Iron Curtain. 

Under the surface, Vatican diplomacy is extremely active in the “technical challenges” of the future Cuba. 

Hence the Pope can now become a universal interpreter, highlighting “the suffering, joy, concerns and the most noble of yearnings” of a people expecting momentous change. 

The Pope is offering the Cuban government his collaboration to help bring about change; he is not offering to connive and collateralise for sinister purposes.