Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Eves of Pope Ratzinger’s Visit / Lilianne Ruíz

The Eves of Pope Ratzinger's Visit / Lilianne Ruíz
Lilianne Ruíz, Translator: Unstated

I hope that when we are alone, when we exhaust all the possible, when
the impossible becomes the only option for salvation, Christ appears.
The Catholic Church is not going to take on the fight for the common
people. It prefers to keep up appearances. Beggars annoy it, the number
of crazies who come to the churches asking for help.

I hope that when we are alone, when we exhaust all the possible, when
the impossible becomes the only option for salvation, Christ appears.
The Catholic Church is not going to take on the fight for the common
people. It prefers to keep up appearances. Beggars annoy it, the number
of crazies who come to the churches asking for help.

It does not want to save the sinners, because it feels better at the
sumptuous tables, among those who have not suffered temptations. It
doesn't matter, I learned to read in the Carmelite and barefoot key that
was necessary to humble myself before what the priests say, to be
obedient, but to continue believing in the living God.

I like it because all the elements of this situation tend to the second
coming — the parousia — as the only option for salvation. There will be
an epiphany in Cuba, nothing else is left. To cap off an exceptionally
Catholic week on national television, I have heard it said from the
pulpit of San Juan de Letrán that people who sheltered in the Church to
present their demands to the Vicar of Rome and, in turn, who dared to
discuss them with the government, were being paid, were employed. Being
paid by whom? Employees of whom? I wanted to ask the young monk.

One must not interrupt a sermon, however, so I concentrated on the sound
of the rain in the desert. The opposition in Cuba, before being a
political party, aspires to have the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights recognized and respected. This is not about politics, it is about
mental health.

I had to think of John Paul II. How I instantly noticed the difference.
The expectation of the first visit of a Pope to an oppressed Cuba was of
freedom. Juan Paul II himself chose to be called the Messenger of Truth
and Hope. He was Polish, he had suffered two totalitarianism, he knew
about the anti-human and anti-Christian phenomenon of these two aspects
of Marxism: the Soviet and the German. He knew the problem was not
political, that to speak of the value of a human person was sufficient
to be a dissident.

But this Pope is German and I have heard that in his youth he belonged
to the Hitler Youth, it's evident in his character. A character, in the
best of cases, of submission. Before becoming Pope he was the Torquemada
of post-modern times, they can no longer burn anyone but they accuse
them and close off dialog before the social realities of these times. I
started to think about the Gospel reading of the day, that of John, my
favorite.

Jesus spoke with Nicodemus, that he would be raised like the serpent of
Moses. My God, I have heard today that God so loved the world that he
gave his Son, it makes me think that if I had been standing at the side
of an angel I would not have wanted to look, because God has placed in
the faith of Christ all we need to access this transfiguration.

Nevertheless, it stops before our freedom, hopes that we put our humble
pebbles in the cornerstone of the active faith that he has put in the
world. That let me forget my disgust at the sermon and even to forgive
the priest, thinking that he has left the whole world to devote himself
to prayer.

But I also think that if the Church does shies away from the collision
it will not have the chance to win the battle of faith against the
anti-Christian beast that is the Cuban Revolution.

March 23 2012

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