The Cardinal of Disgrace / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada

The Cardinal of Disgrace / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada
Translator: AnonyGY, Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada

I have no words to describe the recent statements made by his Eminence
Cardinal and Archbishop of Havana Jaime Lucas Ortega Alamino during his
stay last week in the United States of America.

Those who have followed each of the press releases that mention in one
way or another the statements of the highest Cuban authority within the
Catholic Church, have noticed that despite the fact that he has spoken
in a deliberate tone, the language used by the Cuban cardinal places at
disadvantage the credibility of the good function of the Catholic
hierarchy in the island. He has repeated in his discourse the same
phrases used by the ruling class.

All of us who follow the evolution of the Catholic Church in Cuba, have
denounced on many occasions the so badly called relationship between
Church and State, and the complicity of the Church with the silence of
the true existing situation in the island related to the lack of a state
of rights and also the lack of places for free religious worship.

Maybe for many people the last two visits of the Popes to the island are
more than enough, if we would add some minutes on domestic television,
or the last tour of the pilgrimage of the Virgin, to show the world the
false freedom of worship in Cuba.

Today's comment does not attempt to criticize the role of the Church in
Cuba, but it tries to put in its right place he who uses the Catholic
Church for his own benefit and in defense of those who are sinking the
nation into an increasing poverty.

Today I want to use this article or comment as a pulpit, and from it
denounce the words of someone who does not deserve to wear the purple
color used by martyrs of the Christian faith. The last words spoken by
Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, on April 24th during his mediation at the
Church and Community Forum sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center of
Latin American Studies of Harvard University in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. As many have judged, his speech was similar to one of the
many speeches dictated by the office of the Department of Ideology of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

We would have to ask such a Cuban Cardinal, "How could he have access to
the police records of each person who occupied the Caridad Church in
Havana?" We would also ask, "How could he obtain the information that
such acts of civil disobedience were organized from Miami?" I understand
this time, like many other times, that the Cardinal spoke more than he
should, and now he has to withstand all the critics coming from
different latitudes.

I never imagined to hear, from the lips of the highest pastor of the
Cuban Church, so much malice for those who try to promote full respect
to the basic freedom of each man. To call those who serve unfair
sentences under the most terrible conditions not described by people
like him "common delinquents," at some international meeting, makes him
an accomplice of a corrupt and inert government.

We would have to ask Jaime, "How would he feel if we call him delinquent
because of the fact he was sentenced to compulsory work during the years
of UMAP* together with many other priests and religious people who
practiced faith?"

I am a true catholic, I love the faith of the church, I love my
motherland and the freedom experienced in the abandonment of each of our
vicissitudes on the shoulders of Jesus who deserves to be called The
Greatest Man of All Times. But every time I face situations like the
ones today, by means of which the judgment of the world is focused on
the behavior of the Catholic hierarchy on the island, I see myself with
the obligation to ask that the whole Cuban clergy not be judged for the
behavior of him whom I dare to name the Cardinal Puppet of Castros Brothers.

It is my wish that there be a new awakening of the Christian faith in a
Cuba free from stereotypes and obsolete dogma which place next to the
ruling class those who have to walk next to the poorest people. It is my
wish that the body of the Cuban church receives a transfusion of young
blood with a new zest for life and who will promote a new nation where
true patriotic and Christian values are practiced.

For today I say goodbye to someone who does not deserve to be called
Cardinal and even less Cuban, people like him should be sentenced to
forgetfulness or, it would be better to say, to be sentenced to carry
the weight of the disgraceful history that only he using his high
position has invented, only God knows, and his terrestrial accomplices
for in exchange for benefits.

Translated by: AnonyGy

*Note: UMAP = Military Units in Aid of Production, a series of
concentration camps for religious believers, homosexuals, and others who
ran afoul of the Castro regime. Cardinal Ortega was interned in a UMAP
camp when he was younger.

April 30 2012

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