LPP ISSUE 8 OCTOBER 2021
Vatican Police confiscated Cuban flags during Pope Francis mass
The Vatican police took the flag from a Cuban who was listening to the Angelus Mass officiated by Pope Francis this Sunday in the Plaza de San Pietro. The young man was standing silently with the flag open on his chest, and was approached by several security guards who took the flag from him.
As detailed CybercubaHundreds of Cubans residing in Italy gathered today at the doors of the Vatican as a sign of support for the call for a large mobilization against the Castro regime scheduled for November 15 on the island.
However, sOnly 50 were allowed access and he warned them that they will not admit slogans or flags. “Without slogans or posters, without flags and only fifty people can enter” were the conditions imposed by the Vatican City through the Cardinal, a participant clarified to CiberCuba.
“We understand the slogans and the posters, but why can’t the flag be carried,” he questioned.
The self-convened Cubans explained that they were not trying to demonstrate, but simply to show the flags during the mass to make the situation on the island visible.
A portal report Cubanet He showed that after the mass the Cubans shouted: “If Cuba is in the street, we too”, in support of those who will come out to face the repression of the regime next 15N. They also chanted “No one pays us, we are not terrorists” and “We are all children of God.”
During the rally, denounced that more than 500 protesters from the July 11 protests continue behind bars on the island for exercising their rights during the historic protests that rocked the country this summer.
In recent days, in fact, it became known that the Castro justice of the Municipal Popular of San José de las Lajas, a town 35 kilometers from Havana, imposed on Roberto Pérez Fonseca, 38, the “joint and only sanction to serve 10 years” in prison for the crimes of contempt, attack, public disorder and instigation to commit a crime, indicates the sentence dated October 6 and to which the AFP news agency had access, after his family was notified this week. This is the highest sentence imposed on a detainee related to the July 11 protests in Cuba.
The sentence “is excessive and violates all guarantees of due process,” Laritza Diversent, director of the human rights NGO Cubalex, told AFP, indicating that it is the longest sentence applied for these demonstrations.
The convict’s mother, Liset Fonseca, believes that the real reasons for the long sentence are that his son tore a photograph of the late dictator Fidel Castro, and that he verbally confronted García Montero when he detained another young man. “Breaking the picture, that cannot be forgiven. They had to do something that was a great lesson, “says the woman, anticipating that they will appeal the sentence.
The demonstrations on July 11 and 12 in 50 cities shouting “Freedom” and “We are hungry,” left one dead, dozens injured and 1,130 detainees, according to Miami-based Cubalex. More than 560 remain in prison.
Now with the call for November 15 fears of more repression grew up. The fact is that the Cuban dictatorship has denied permission to hold that march, which it considers “illegal”, threatens to accuse them of crimes punishable by economic sanctions and deprivation of liberty for three months to a year.
The objective of the peaceful march is to demand respect for the rights and release of political prisoners, among other issues.
KEEP READING:
The US warned the Cuban dictatorship that it will impose more sanctions if it persecutes the promoters of the opposition mobilization
The Cuban dictatorship prohibited the opposition demonstration called for November 15
The Cuban dictatorship threatened the organizers of an opposition mobilization on November 15 with “legal consequences”
Despite the prohibition of the Castro dictatorship, the Cuban opposition ratified the demonstration of November 15
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Video of how they confiscated the Cuban flag at Pope Francis’ mass
The security forces in the Vatican prevented the entry of hundreds of
people with Cuban flags into St. Peter’s Square in a demonstration that
was held during the Angelus mass, officiated by Pope Francis.
One of the Cubans present at that protest, who made a Twitter broadcast of these incidents, indicated that these demonstrations are a request to the pontiff to pronounce on the government of Cuba.
“The least that millions of human beings who are going through a difficult time deserve is that a pronouncement and a request for prayer, that there is conciliation,” said the protester.
Many of the people who attended spoke to the cry of “God, country, life and freedom”
;, as in moments recorded on video via Twitter, where the topic was a trend.TODAY in the Vatican, Cubans ask for solidarity:
“God, Country, Life and Freedom” @Pontifex_es, a prayer for the Cuban people asking for freedom.pic.twitter.com / hUOODjhqjP– Rosa María Payá A. (@RosaMariaPaya) October 24, 2021
Pictures were even broadcast with many of those protesters who, with Caribbean island flags, lay on the floor as a way of peaceful protest.
“Hundreds of Cubans demonstrating in front of the Vatican headquarters, lying on the floor to symbolize the violence of the Cuban dictatorship, in reference to the thousands of disappeared, murdered and tortured by the regime,” said a tweeter who shared those photographs.
Hundreds of Cubans demonstrating in front of the Vatican headquarters, lying on the floor to symbolize the violence of the Cuban dictatorship, in reference to the thousands of disappeared, murdered and tortured by the regime. Some images for the story that has to go around the world. pic.twitter.com/fGpfpl1ymg
– Agustin Antonetti () October 24, 2021
@agustantonetti
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Vatican: the video of the seizure of the Cuban flag at Pope Francis’ mass
Despite the restrictions, one of the people who protested in his petition to the pontiff for Cuba managed to enter the space where the traditional ceremony takes place.
That man, who was filmed while kneeling with the Cuban flag in his hands, saw how the Vatican Police tore and confiscated that symbol during mass.
A person present recorded it in a video that went viral in the midst of the protests that took place in that territory.
The video of when Vatican security withdrew the Cuban flag from a demonstrator while kneeling praying in St. Peter’s Square is viral. It happened today Sunday during the Angelus Mass, officiated by Pope Francis. pic.twitter.com/2pPibRlrVI
– Reinaldo A. Blanco A. (@BlancoCorreo) October 24, 2021
Pope Francis Hangs Out With Fidel Castro
When the bishop of Rome hangs out with one of the world’s most famous Communist revolutionaries, what do the two chat about?
According to Vatican spokesman Frederico Lombardi: “protection of the environment and the great problems faced by today’s world.” On Sunday, Francis and Fidel met for roughly half an hour after the pope celebrated mass in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución. The meeting wasn’t on the pope’s formal schedule for his trip in Cuba, but it’s not a total surprise that it happened, according to The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner.
The two did a book swap, including a bonus CD for Castro. (Perhaps the men of 78 and 89, respectively, haven’t quite embraced mp3s.) The former Cuban president gave the pope a book by a Brazilian priest called Fidel and Religion. Francis returned the favor with several books by the priest Don Alessandro Pronzato and copies of his encyclical on climate change and apostolic exhortation on the gospel—for what it’s worth, that’s Francis’s much celebrated smack-down on greed and capitalism. In his gift, the pope also included writings and recordings of homilies by one of Castro’s childhood priests. Here’s Austen Ivereigh, the author of a biography on Francis, on that gift choice:
In other words, the gift to Fidel of Fr Llorente's book and CD may have been to help El Jefe to come to terms with his past.
— Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) September 20, 2015
It's the kind of thing a priest does for a dying man.
— Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) September 20, 2015
Cubans who were going to attend the Pope’s mass are denied entry to the Vatican
The Vatican denied entry to hundreds of Cubans who wanted to attend mass this Sunday, after receiving information about a possible attack on the Holy See, a participant in the rally told CiberCuba.
Cubans residing in Italy and from other countries went to Vatican City to participate in the Angelus Mass officiated by Pope Francis with the intention of making visible the march of 15N and the situation of political prisoners in Cuba.
However, the Holy See Guard denied them entry to the Plaza de San Pietro and explained that they had received information that the Cubans would carry out an attack in the Plaza de San Pietro.
“This is very hard, incredible, they put up metal barriers to block access”, said to CiberCuba one of the Cubans who has been on hold since 8:00 in the morning local time.
First, they sent the head of the Vatican gendarmerie who explained the reasons for the refusal: “They see it as a hostile act towards the Vatican”said the source in reference to the position of the authorities with the presence of Cubans.
The presenter Alexander Otaola, who traveled to Rome to participate in the rally, asked to speak with a member of the Vatican clergy and the Holy See sent a Cardinal whose name was not specified in this newspaper.
A group of Cubans residing in Italy called a rally at the Vatican for this Sunday, October 24, regarding the march of the November 15 in Cuba, which seeks to make visible the repression on the island and advocate for the release of political prisoners.
Participants will gather in the Plaza San Pietro at 8:00 in the morning to attend the Angelus mass officiated by His Holiness Pope Francis and the presence of hundreds of Cubans is expected.
Cubans are traveling by buses to Rome from various cities on the Italian peninsula and from other countries, as is the case of a representation of the Cuban community in the United States, including the influencer Alexander Otaola.
This morning, the presenter made a live broadcast from the hotel where he is staying in Rome, minutes after his arrival in the Italian capital, not without setbacks. Immigration officers detained him at the airport for no apparent reason, Otaola explained.
At the time of writing this note, and as a prelude to the rally this Sunday, Cubans, Italians and other nationalities that stand in solidarity with the cause of Cuban freedom are in the Plaza de la Madonna Di Loreto demanding the end of the dictatorship on the island.
An Israeli citizen spoke to those present in Hebrew and others spoke in Italian and Spanish to carry the message of what is happening in Cuba in various languages.
The presenter Alexander Otaola also took the microphone and others chanted “Homeland and Life” and “If Cuba is on the street, we too”, among other slogans, in solidarity with those who today suffer harassment and prison after the protests of the 11J on the island.
Sources based in Rome present at the demonstration taking place at this moment, assured CiberCuba that, after the rally in the Piazza de la Madonna Di Loreto, there will be a pilgrimage that will pass through emblematic points of Rome and will culminate in the vicinity of the Italian Parliament.
The objective of this march prior to the concentration in the Vatican this Sunday, October 24, is to bring a clearer message to the citizens of that country through harangues, slogans and posters not allowed in the Plaza de San Pietro.
This weekend’s liturgy honors that of the 15N march with the same clothing label representative of peace and the presence of Cuban flags and initiatives that promote change in Cuba.
More than 1,130 Cubans have been arrested for exercising their right to demonstrate on the island during the anti-government protests last July. Of these, more than 500 remain behind bars and many face prosecution requests for up to 25 years of deprivation of liberty.
Another nod by Pope Francis to Castroism: Vatican police confiscate flags of Cuban dissidents
The Vatican has once again made a new nod to communist dictatorships. This Sunday hundreds of Cubans with flags of their country attended the Angelus Mass officiated by the Pope Francisco in the Plaza San Pedro. The call was a show of support for the mobilization against the Castro regime scheduled for November 15 on the island. What they did not expect is that Vatican Security agents would confiscate their country’s flags when it is very common to see people from all over the world in the square with flags.
“God, country, life and freedom!” Was one of the shouts made by a group of women who were peacefully demonstrating for freedom in Cuba. “Human rights for Cubans!” and “We want Cuba free!” were other slogans.
The Vatican has a Gendarmerie Corps which acts as gendarmerie, police and security force of the Vatican City and the extraterritorial properties of the Holy See, in addition to the already known as Switzerland guard, which protects the Pope within the Holy See. The body is responsible for security, public order, border control, traffic control, criminal investigation, and other general policing tasks.
It was a peaceful demonstration in which the Cubans asked Pope Francis to make a gesture for the thousands of his compatriots who live under the totalitarian boot of Castroism. But this Pope has already made it clear which side he is on, so much so that he recently received praise from none other than the Spanish anticlerical left for his criticism of the Conquest of America.
It should be remembered that in November 2016 the Italian newspaper The Republic published a short interview with Pope Francis to questions from the Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari in which he said that “the communists were the only ones who thought like the Christians.”
“Are you also referring to a Marxist-type society?” Scalfari asked him. “If anything, it is the communists who think like the Christians,” the Pope replied. «Christ has spoken of a society in which the poor, the weak and the excluded decide. To obtain equality and freedom we must help the people, the poor with or without faith in God, and not the demagogues or the barabbas, “he added.
https://then24.com
Experts fear Cuba is preparing a harsh response to recent protests
U.S. theologians and human rights experts on Cuba worried that any repeat of the widespread protests in Cuba on July 11 may be met with a swift, violent set of state-sponsored reactions.
There were already signals the Cuban government had disseminated a multifaceted action plan July 12 that was to last 72 hours. It included shutting down internet communications, as well as deploying plainclothes-wearing state police and military personnel to squash further protests following July 11's massive turnout, according to Elsie Miranda.
"I am afraid for the people [there] because of their desperation and willingness to die for a chance to live," said Miranda, a professor of theology and director of accreditation for the Association of Theological Schools.
She has led missions to Cuba in conjunction with the Catholic Church there and attended Pope Francis' visit to Cuba in 2015.
A communication that Miranda has seen, written in Spanish and circulating among human rights activists, appeared to detail the Cuban government's nine-point plan to shut down further civic displays of unrest and called for using whatever means necessary to do so, including a large presence of plainclothes police dispatched to mingle among protesters to make arrests.
Miranda, who is normally based in Pittsburgh but is working this summer from Miami, told Catholic News Service in a phone interview the recent protests show a bold new willingness and determination among Cuban youth to stand up to the communist regime and to express that they have nothing to lose now.
But if there isn't a turnaround in the Cuban military, she said, it may end badly for the protesters.
"Unless there is a shift in the military and they turn — and I don't see that happening — this will be a very sad moment in our history," Miranda said, pointing out the hardline leadership of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is a continuation of Raul Castro's presidency.
"How long can [Díaz-Canel] hold on to power using these methods if there is a slaughter of the people? He has the support of Venezuela, Nicaragua and maybe even Argentina to come into Cuba," she said.
The tone of the July 11 protests in Cuba was wrapped up in a popular Cuban rap song, "Patria y Vida" ("Homeland and Life"). It's a play on words and a new response to the popular slogan of the Cuban Revolution, "Patria o Muerte" ("Motherland or Death").
Patria y Vida - Yotuel , @Gente De Zona , @Descemer Bueno , Maykel Osorbo , El Funky
"I have to believe in miracles and hope for some kind of intervention, but I am afraid there will be a lot of people dying tonight," Miranda added. "The people have reached a point where the value of their life is less to them now than the value of facilitating change.
"There really is a sense that the camel's back is broken and they don't care what the consequences are anymore because if they die, they die heroes."
A poor economic situation in Cuba has reportedly been exacerbated in recent months by the coronavirus pandemic, although it is hard for outsiders to know how significantly the pandemic is impacting the country as a whole.
Cuba claims to have developed a COVID-19 vaccine, and protesters were calling for greater access to vaccines as well as demanding an end to the 62-year dictatorship.
A national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, known as MCL for its initials in Spanish, said thousands of Cubans were demanding freedom and an end to repression and misery.
The group also demanded "the release of political prisoners, the annulment of the repressive laws against freedom, recognition of economic rights of free enterprise for Cubans, and recognition of [the right of] each Cuban — inside and outside the island — to vote and to be elected," it said.
"My view of this is that it is a combination of a dire economic situation owing to the dramatic decline in tourism, loss of economic assistance from Venezuela, and the increasing connectivity of the Cuban population, both domestically and abroad," said Peter Sanchez, a professor emeritus of comparative politics at Loyola University Chicago, who has conducted field research in Cuba. He made the comments in an email to CNS.
News reports said the unprecedented protests in Cuba have taken place not only in Havana but in 14 other Cuban cities. They were mirrored by a vocal street protest in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood late afternoon July 11.
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Miranda, who attended the Miami event, which took place around the city's popular Versailles Cuban Restaurant, said protesters there and those calling in to Miami's Spanish radio stations were asking President Joe Biden to intervene.
Others were still calling for former President Donald Trump to be the agent of change for Cuba, she said, adding that the former president is still seen by Miami's Cuban-Americans as supportive of regime change in Cuba.
But Miranda said the Catholic Church and Pope Francis — given the church's relative independence in Cuba — should seize the moment to make a new gesture and express support of the Cuban youth protests.
"I was there [in Havana] for the papal visit with Francis when the youth were telling him that we need to have a future and have no place to practice our trade; the pope needs to exercise his leadership in Cuba in a more forceful way and I think he has been a little too slow," she said.
"But now we need leadership — strong, forceful, revolutionary leadership that stands up to these abusive powers and oppressive regimes," she added. "I am concerned that it may come too late."
In Colorado, Miguel De La Torre, professor of social ethics and Latinx studies at the University of Denver's Iliff School of Theology, has led research delegations to Cuba. He said he was cautiously watching to see what happens in Cuba in the days ahead in light of how past challenges to the Cuban regime over the years have been stifled.
He pointed out a 2020 clampdown of the San Isidro artist movement in Havana during which the government forcibly detained and then released protesters seeking greater freedoms.
"The fact that the people are crying out for life is very significant. It is not just protest for the sake of protest, it is calling for something significant," De La Torre said, adding that if the pandemic is hitting the country hard, then it may be pushing the Cuban people past the boiling point.
"The Cuban government is calling for bloodshed asking that true revolutionaries take back the streets. The Cubans in the U.S. are calling for bloodshed, demanding the U.S. government take back the island," he said. "Neither a U.S. invasion nor a civil war are the answers."
"At a time like this, maybe we should listen to those who are protesting in the streets — risking everything — and pay attention to what they — and they alone — want," he added. "They are not pawns to be manipulated by the right or the left — instead their free agency must be respected and supported during these momentous events."
Hundreds of Cubans protest outside the Vatican after being prevented from entering Pope Francis’ congregation
More than a hundred Cubans protested outside the Vatican this Sunday After the Guardian of the Holy See blocked access to Pope Francis’ Angel’s Prayer, they sought to condemn the regime’s repression. Announced by Radio Television Marty.
One of the people gathered at the Vatican, Lazaro Mireles, coordinator of the Acts for Democracy, Posted pictures On their social networks The roaring of the Cubans can be seen as a form of protest.
“We kneel in front Vatican Why didn’t they let us pass, Our faith is unworthy of hearing according to the Catholic Church. This is how they divide us, those who peacefully want freedom and human rights for our people, ”the activist wrote on Twitter.
He knelt with the flag of a Cuban island that was able to enter the Plaza de San Pedro Pope Francisco Performed by Angeles, Several police officers then took it from him.
Italian news agency ANSA Report That approximately 500 Cubans from different parts of the world went to bed en The way of compromise After seeing that they were denied access to the square.
“They are all wrapped in the flags of CubaAlso, create the ‘L’ sign with their fingers to hear ‘freedom’, ”the company added.
Cubans, among them YouTuber Alexander Ottola, They went to the Holy See to request a report from Pope Francis on the condition of the island, Marked by a severe economic crisis and an increase Oppression From the regime to the citizens.
Sunday after July 11th Francisco “was close to the loving Cuban people during these difficult timesEspecially from the most vulnerable families. After praying to Angeles, I pray to the Lord to help him build peace, dialogue and unity in a more just and fraternal society.
“I ask that all of the people of Quito be handed over to the maternal care of the Virgin Mary of Corridor del Cobre. She will accompany them on this journey,” he added.
"Extreme pop culture lover. Twitter enthusiast. Music ninja. Booze. Communicator. Bacon nerd in general."
Pope Francis’ Limited Public Response to Cuba Protests Draws Mixed Reviews
Some Cuban dissidents say the Vatican should be more forcefully supporting political reform, while other voices say Church leadership is focused on preventing violence and promoting religious liberty.
Since demonstrations swept across Cuba on June 11, a parade of U.S. politicians, foreign nations and even pop stars have spoken up with gusto in support of the anti-communist protests and against the island-nation’s authoritarian government and its crackdowns. But one voice has been comparably limited: Pope Francis’.
Just once since the demonstrations began has the Holy Father publicly addressed the political crisis in Cuba — a country where the majority of people are baptized Catholics despite more than 60 years of communist rule — and then only briefly. At his July 18 Angelus address, his first public appearance following a minor surgery, the Holy Father expressed his closeness to the Cuban people “in these difficult moments.”
“I pray that the Lord might help the nation construct a society that is more and more just and fraternal through peace, dialogue and solidarity,” said Pope Francis, before urging all Cubans to entrust themselves to Our Lady of Charity, Cuba’s patroness.
Several Cubans were in St. Peter’s Square to hear the Pope’s words, many of them waving their country’s flag. According to one report, those gathered drew solace from the Holy Father’s address.
“All we wanted was for the Pope to have mercy and to intervene because were able to leave [Cuba] but our siblings are not living in freedom,” Deborah, a Cuban in attendance who was identified only by her first name for fear of government reprisal against her family, told Crux. “It’s comforting to know that he didn’t disappoint.”
Criticisms of Pope Francis, Church Leadership
But for other Cubans, Pope Francis and the wider Vatican response to the crisis in Cuba has been, in fact, a disappointment. Church leadership has been criticized for a failure to speak up more forcefully against communism and in favor of the protesters calling for political change.
Maria Victoria Olavarrieta, a Cuban teaching at a Catholic school in Miami, wrote a widely circulated letter to the Holy Father, telling him that the Christian people do “not need a social leader or a diplomat. We want a pastor, a firm stone where the Church can be sustained.” She added that the Cuban people feel abandoned by their shepherd amidst government repression and asked that the Holy Father “pray and act so that no more people die” in Cuba, or in Venezuela or Nicaragua, two other Latin American countries under repressive rule.
Other Cubans opposed to the government in their homeland have expressed frustration with Francis and Church leadership over a seeming “false equivalence” drawn between protesters and the regime, arguing that calls for dialogue fail to acknowledge the imbalance of power in play and the violent means to which the Cuban government is willing to go. Shortly after the protests began, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called on his supporters to violently confront protesters in the streets. One person has reportedly been killed, with hundreds more arrested by government officials or otherwise missing.
Carlos Paya, a representative of the dissident group Christian Movement for Liberation (MCL) who resides in Spain, said Church leadership has to act more boldly in solidarity with the Cuban people, who are legitimately and peacefully demanding greater freedom. He characterized responses from the Church hierarchy as “only trying to save their image,” clinging to the minimal improvements Catholics have gained in Cuba recently instead of calling for sweeping changes that have been needed for decades.
“Splitting the distance between the victim and the murderer favors the murderer,” he said, in criticism of the official Church response, noting that if the Church is unwilling to throw its public support behind the protest movements, more violence could follow and the moment could pass without achieving reform.
MCL’s leader, Dr. Eduardo Cardet, went even further in his criticism of Church leadership, describing the Church hierarchy’s response as “very regrettable” and incongruent with the Gospel call to be in solidarity with the oppressed.
“The Church needs to let go of political alignments and other shady interests and identify totally with human needs, fighting for the well-being of man no matter where he is,” said Cardet, who claimed Pope Francis has shown “clear signs of sympathizing with the ideas of the left” and criticized his cordial relations with Cuba’s communist leadership. Francis visited the island in 2015 and met with then-Cuban president Raúl Castro.
Papal Diplomacy
But not everyone with Cuban connections or familiarity with papal diplomacy is in full agreement with these assessments.
Enrique Pumar, a Cuban-American and chairman of the sociology department at Santa Clara University, says the history of the Catholic Church under communist-rule in Cuba offers some important lessons. For instance, while open confrontation with Fidel Castro when the revolutionary leader took office resulted in the exile of hundreds of priests and a crackdown on the public practice of worship, a more conciliatory approach has allowed the Church to regain some freedom in recent years, in turn allowing it greater capacity to meet the spiritual and material needs of the Cuban people.
And while he says he emphasizes with “the movement” and calls for political reform in Cuba, Pumar doesn’t believe open confrontation will be the most fruitful path forward.
“In Cuba, quiet, behind-the-scenes articulation of demands goes a long way, but is rarely acknowledged,” he said. “We have to remember that we are dealing with insecure, autocratic leaders that do not appreciate voiced dissent.”
Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen, a distinguished professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, agrees with Pumar’s assessment.
He suggested that instead of a lack of concern for the plight of the Cuban people, Pope Francis and the Vatican are likely taking a more publicly restrained approach in order to avoid making the crisis any worse, which would have the greatest impact on the poor and vulnerable.
“The Church’s motives in these difficult situations tend to be humanitarian and to promote religious liberty,” not regime change, said Father Christiansen, who formerly directed the Office of International Justice and Peace at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Some
have criticized Francis for not following in the mode of Pope St. John
Paul II, who famously confronted communist and other authoritarian
leaders and was more public in his calls for political change. But
Father Christiansen said John Paul’s “personal charisma” allowed him to
uniquely employ such tactics, while the Polish pope and the current Holy
Father actually share a more important quality: a disillusionment with
military intervention.
Some have called for the U.S. or an international body to intervene in
Cuba with the aim of protecting its citizens from their own government.
But Father Christiansen warns that such a move could ratchet up conflict, the avoidance of which he says is a hallmark of both popes’ approaches to papal diplomacy and also in their moral teaching, as expressed, for instance, in John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus and Francis’ Fratelli Tutti.
Both take very seriously the human cost of war, which, in the modern context, tends to disproportionately include civilians. Relatedly, both tend to avoid aggressive language that could contribute to bloodshed on the ground. In fact, Father Christiansen suggested that the Pope felt more comfortable being blunt with his criticisms of former U.S. President Donald Trump and his immigration policy, for instance, precisely because this criticism was not likely to result in violent reprisal or crackdowns on the Church — which cannot be said for the situation in Cuba.
Father Christiansen does see room for prudential disagreement about the best course of action and adds that the condition for a just rebellion as taught by Pope St. Paul VI — “long-standing tyranny” — applies to the situation in Cuba.
But he says Pope Francis is going another route. Given the role the Holy Father played in lifting the U.S. embargo of Cuba in 2014, he says the Vatican has some influence with the Cuban regime and is more likely to bring an end to injustices being committed against the Cuban people — if not also political reform — through conversations behind closed doors. He says this approach is similar to how Pope Pius XII operated during World War II, when he refrained from public criticism of the Nazis but worked to counter them in private.
The Georgetown professor said he sympathizes with the Cuban people but is doubtful that armed intervention is likely to produce desired change.
“It’s legitimate [for the Cuban people] to ask for more defense of human rights on the part of the Church because that’s part of the Church’s teaching. But that doesn’t mean the Church is forced to uphold a rebellion or intervention by the U.N. or other neighboring states.”
Jonathan Liedl Jonathan Liedl lives and works in Minnesota's Twin Cities. He has previously worked for the Minnesota Catholic Conference, Catholic Rural Life and EWTN. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and Arabic Studies from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), and has studied sacred theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
Carrying the Cuban flag on your shoulders could take you to jail in Cuba
Aug 14, 2019, 08:37 ET
HAVANA, Cuba, Aug. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/-- Cuban independent artists have launched a challenge #TheFlagBelongsTo All" (#LaBanderaEsDeTodos) to counter the government's latest form of censorship, which prohibits Cubans from wearing the national flag as a sign of political protest. After the Cuban government's recent escalation of repression--including the forced disappearance of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara--supporting artists of the San Isidro Movement have heralded a call to action to challenge the government's new restrictions relating to the use of national symbols.
Prominent Cuban activists are already facing prosecution under a new law, which has not even officially gone into effect. In Cuba, even after laws are passed by the national legislature, they are technically not enforceable until the public is put on notice in the Official Gazette for the Republic of Cuba. Although the law at issue has not yet been published, Cuban police have been unlawfully enforcing the law, making illegal arrests.
Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara was arrested August 10 in Havana, and has remained in detention for more than 48 hours, according to the news website, ADN Cuba.
The reported cause of Otero's arrest was his decision to carry a Cuban flag on his shoulders in public as part of a performance entitled "Drapeau."
"The national symbols belong to the body of the nation. They cannot and will not be able to ration them according to selfish interests of indoctrinating and monopolizing the thinking of Cubans," the San Isidro Movement explained in a statement.
The new law was passed earlier this year purportedly to "protect national symbols", including new regulations including the use of the Cuban flag. Cuban citizens can still carry Cuban flags at public events and hang them in their homes.
It is a quintessential example of the government's draconian approach to restricting citizens to voice their opinions through 'expressive conduct.'
To contrast the distinctions between so-called civil liberties in Cuba and actual freedom in the United States, the Castro regime is prohibiting Cuban citizens from honoring its flag by wearing it whereas the U.S. safeguards the rights of Americans to destroy their flag as a sign of protest.
In 1989, the US Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag was a protected form of free speech under the Constitution's First Amendment.
The Court reaffirmed its ruling in 1990, in US v. Eichman after political artist and then Communist activist Shawn Eichman burned the American flag on the steps of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C.
In both cases, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that although burning the American flag offended some people, outlawing flag burning would violate the spirit of the freedom the flag stands for.
The Court also ruled that the simple physical destruction of a flag itself does not diminish or weaken the symbolic spirit for which the flag stands.
"What needs to be urgently analyzed today in national life is the alleged right of the Cuban government and the security organs to discriminate against the use of national symbols, born and forged long before their reactionary revolution, their totalitarian communist party, and the birth of their aged leaders," said Michel Matos, producer and member of the San Isidro Movement.
With this, citizens would not be allowed to combine the use of the Cuban flag with a foreign flag; fold it in a way that prevents it from opening, use it in commercial advertising, show it torn or broken, add stamps, writings or signatures to the flag, or incorporate it into larger works. In addition, if the flag appears on clothing, it must be displayed on the front and cannot be part of pants, skirts, scarves, swimsuits or underwear.
This is not the first time that Otero Alcantara has been arrested for exercising his right to freedom of expression. On multiple occasions he has been arrested for his activism against Decree 349, which limits artistic manifestations.
In the name of free speech, ADN Cuba expresses its support for this campaign to shield the right of Cubans to express themselves freely and to celebrate diversity of ideas.
"As communicators, it is important we express our rejection to the Cuban government's methods of institutionalizing censorship through arbitrary detentions, decrees or control of artistic expression in all its forms. We want a decentralized country, a rule of law and no more totalitarianism. The Cuban people want to write their destiny," said Yaima Pardo, Audiovisual Director of ADN Cuba.
For the Cuban government, there is a close link between symbols and ideology, so they control their use in public spaces.
"The government says that everything that is done indoors can be allowed, but not in public spaces," explains Otero Alcantara, who believes that Cuba is approaching a critical time in which artists take possession of the symbols and expand even more criticism within permissible spaces.
In response to these repressive events, the San Isidro Movement has asked supporters to create photos and videos with the Cuban flag on their shoulders and publish them on the Internet with the hashtag #LaBanderaEsDeTodos. (The flag belongs to all)
The Movement also asks that Cuban flags be donated to the Museum of Dissidence in Cuba for its peaceful demonstrations and works of art since the group's flags have been seized by the police, and the price of these on the island is inaccessible.
The flags can be delivered "between August, Monday 12 and Friday 16 on Damas 955 Street, in Old Havana (MAPI) between 2 PM and 6 PM. If you are located in Havana, but cannot deliver a flag personally write to the following email address:
sanisidromovimiento@gmail.com and a team will be sent to collect the flag or a donation!
About The San Isidro Movement
The San Isidro Movement emerged on August 11, 2018 in the San Isidro neighborhood of Havana when a group of artists and activists were arrested following the "Without permission from 349" concert at the headquarters of the Museum of Dissidence in Cuba. Using extreme violence, state police and security agents launched an "operation" that assaulted the artists, who were meeting peacefully to express their opposition to Decree 349; a law that violates the spirit of island based autonomy, artistic freedom and expression, revealing its ultimate effect to be a mere government strategy to systematize censorship.
For more information:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mov_sanisidro
Email: sanisidromovimiento@gmail.com
About ADN Cuba
ADN Cuba is an audiovisual, social and participatory magazine with correspondents in Cuba, Spain, Latin America and the United States. It was founded in 2017 with the objective of showing Cuba from its diversity and focuses on documentary work on LGBT, Art, Human Rights, Digital Rights, Economics, Racial Integration, and Entrepreneurship.
More than a "cubanity" test, it is a place of coexistence for its readers and writers to meet and celebrate diversity; a way for them to exchange questions and visions, images and sounds along with the contribution of many people who live on the island as well as the incalculable contributions of those exiles who live outside the island as they strive to remain connected with their homeland.
For more information:
https://adncuba.com and its social networks:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ADNCuba
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CubaAdn
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adncuba
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ADNCuba
Contact: ADN Cuba
Email: editor@adncuba.com
Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/960414/Banderas_2.mp4
SOURCE ADN Cuba
Related Links
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ROME – Many were shocked on Sunday when the Vatican police forced a group of some 15 Cubans to put down their Cuban flags at the Sunday Angelus in St. Peter’s Square.
Although political manifestations have always been banned at the event, pilgrims often bring flags, hoping the pope will make mention of their country.
On Sunday, at least one young Cuban refused to give up his flag, instead kneeling down in the square. Videos available on social media show a Vatican policeman grabbing the flag. A woman, Amor de Grecia Rodriguez, who was doing a Facebook live during the Angelus, had her flag around her neck, as a cape, and the same man takes it from her.
When she asks to have her flag back, he refuses. When several voices are heard telling the Vatican police that no one can be forcibly removed from God’s house, the man, wearing sun glasses, says that they are not being removed, and argues that he’d asked them several times to put down the flags.
Around them, the national emblems of Peru, Honduras, Spain and others countries are visible.
Why were the Cubans in St. Peter’s Square?
Rome is home to a large community of Cuban expats, most of whom fled the oppression of the Communist regime that has ruled over the island nation since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
Since July 11, after a series of protests on the island, the Cubans have been present at public papal events, particularly the weekly Wednesday audiences and the Sunday Angelus prayer.
At the beginning, their strategy of trying to garner the pope’s attention so that he would speak about what’s happening seemed to work: On July 18, Sunday, Francis expressed his closeness to Cuba, voicing the hope that the country will become more just and fraternal.
The Cubans who live in Rome know – and abide by – the Vatican’s rules: no political statements are allowed. But the flags have always had a green-light. On Sunday, that changed.
“I felt like I was back in Cuba,” Amor de Grecia Rodriguez told Crux on Monday. “We’ve gone to papal events many, many times, and we know that political slogans are not allowed. And we’re fine with that.”
“We believe that God knows of the suffering of the Cuban people,” she said. “We don’t need to go to the Vatican or a Church for him to know about it. But we are tired of the blind, deaf and mute who refuse to see, hear and speak about what’s happening to our people.”
Rodriguez acknowledged that they know Pope Francis cannot fix the problems of Cuba.
“But we wanted for him to give us a minute of his time, so that he once again rose his voice against the dictatorship. He’s a public figure, of world relevance, and as such, he can have an influence,” she said.
“We were treated like dogs,” she said, adding that, much like Pontius Pilate, the Argentine pontiff had washed his hands of the suffering of Cuba.
Why did the Vatican police act on Sunday?
Cuban-American actor and political activist Alexander Otaola had summoned his followers to gather in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, and some 500 people from all around Europe were set to answer his call.
In a live transmission on Facebook this Saturday, Otaola claimed that the police had told them that they would be allowed into St. Peter’s Square, while informing his followers that demonstrations inside the Vatican are forbidden. Following this warning, he urged them to “meet there as pilgrims, as religious, as people of faith, as people who come advocating for the needy, who come advocating for the people who are oppressed.”
He also stated that the reason he was going to attend was for Francis to take “a stance against the Cuban dictatorship.”
“The Pope has to speak, he has to manifest himself and as head of a State he has to take a position before the suffering, before the repression, before the calamity, the fear, the harassment that the Cuban people are suffering,” Otaola said.
However, on Sunday morning, the message spread across Cuban exile WhatsApp groups that they weren’t going to be allowed in St. Peter’s Square. For this reason, only 15 people were able to get into the square, including people like Rodriguez, who told the guards that she came from Rome and was an Italian citizen, things she knew she could attest with her ID.
The Vatican police officer who took her flag reportedly told her to think of herself as “fortunate” for being there, to which she told Crux: “I wasn’t ‘fortunate,’ I was only able to get into the square because I don’t fit their norm of what a Cuban looks like: brown skin and black hair.”
Otaola and others placed themselves on the Via della Conciliazione that leads to St. Peter’s and laid down, covering themselves with the Cuban flag and carrying signs with religious connotations, such as “mercy for the Cuban people.”
Another of the Cuban regulars to public papal events, and who was present on Sunday, told Crux that they feel “trapped between a sword and a wall,” because “everything is a little – or a lot – more complicated than what it looks like.”
Asking to remain anonymous because of their standing within the expat community, they argued that “yes, the police was unfair, violent even” in the way the Cubans were treated in the square. They also said that it’s true that most of the “regulars” go to St. Peter’s for religious reasons. However, there’s also an intrinsic political undertone in their presence because “we’re not only asking the pope to intervene in our favor with God, but also with a Communist regime that is killing us.”
The person said to pretend that the planned manifestation on Sunday “would not have been a political statement on itself, would be disingenuous.”
Deborah, yet another of the regulars, but who requested not to have her last name published to protect her family members still in the island, said that what happened on Sunday had “many grays.” On the one hand, she agrees with Rodriguez: The fact that security personnel took the flag from her neck made her think of the oppressive regime she left behind. On the other, she believes that it’s rational to believe that the Vatican was “afraid” of Otaola, because he had requested a permit to attend the Angelus.
“You don’t need to ask permission if all you’re going to do is pray,” she said. During the days leading to the Angelus, Otaola had organized a series of rallies in front of other Roman churches, and oftentimes, Francis was the target of insults and accusations that he was a communist.
“You can’t insult me on Saturday and then expect me to open the doors of my house on Sunday,” Deborah said.
“There were some Cuban at the gates of St. Peter’s Square who wanted to turn our religious plea into a political one. And you cannot do that.”
Follow Inés San Martín on Twitter: @inesanma
Cuban flags confiscated during Pope Francis mass
The young man was on his knees, in silence, with the flag open over his head, and was approached by several security guards who took it from him.
Courtesy | Only 50 were allowed access and they were warned that they will not admit slogans or flags
The Vatican police took the flag from a Cuban who was listening to the Angelus Mass officiated by Pope Francis this Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square.
The young man was on his knees, in silence, with the flag open over his head, and was approached by several security guards who took it from him.
Hundreds of Cubans residing in Italy gathered today at the doors of the Vatican as a sign of support for the call for a large mobilization against the Castro government scheduled for November 15 on the island.
However, only 50 were allowed access and they were warned that they will not admit slogans or flags. “Without slogans or posters, without flags and only fifty people can enter” were the conditions imposed by the Vatican City through the Cardinal, a participant clarified to CiberCuba.
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Police stop demonstrators in St. Peter's Square protesting against Cuban dictatorship
At the end of the Pope's Angelus, a chant broke out among the crowd.
“Freedom, freedom, freedom...”
These people were behind it....
There were between 100 and 200 Cubans who had arrived from different countries in Europe to protest against the dictatorship, repression and political prisoners in Cuba.
Following protocol, the police did not allow the political protesters into St. Peter's Square for the Pope's Angelus.
And those who did make it into the Square had their flags confiscated.
The demonstrators lay on the ground in support of the more than 500 Cubans who were arrested following the protests in July.
The Vatican opposes violent repression and the suppression of freedom in Cuba and everywhere else, but it is nonetheless forbidden to use St. Peter's Square for political protests.
The last time the Pope spoke about the situation in Cuba was in July, during the protests.
POPE FRANCIS
July 2021
I am also near to the dear Cuban people in these difficult
moments, in particular to those families suffering the most. I pray that
the Lord might help the nation build an increasingly just and fraternal
society through peace, dialogue and solidarity.
Since the end of August, groups of Cubans with Cuban flags have been attending some of the Pope's public events.
The Cuban people are dying because we lack freedom.
We come here every Wednesday and Sunday to ask for mercy and for him to intercede for the Cuban people.
...Support, support for our people, who are dying.
The Cuban opposition is rallying people on the island for another wave of protests on Nov. 15. But the Cuban government has prohibited them and called them illegal.
JMB
TR: CT
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