Raul Castro Attends First Beatification in Cuba

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: NYT/AP

Thousands of Roman Catholic faithful and even President Raul Castro gathered Saturday for the beatification of a monk known as the ''father of the poor'' -- the first ceremony of its kind on Cuban soil.

The act brings Friar Jose Olallo Valdes, a member of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God, one step closer to sainthood.

Olallo was born in 1820 and abandoned at a Havana orphanage. He came to the central city of Camaguey to take his religious vows at 15 and stayed the rest of his life, earning his nickname by caring for the needy and chronically ill. He died in 1889 at age 69....

***

The beatification and Raul Castro's attendance could help further improve the once icy relationship between the church and Cuba's communist government. The ceremony was widely announced in state-controlled news media, unusual in a country where official news outlets often ignore religious matters....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-CB-GEN-Cuba-Beatification.html

[WriteDown]

1. Things seem to have changed a lot...

since Fidel has passed away.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. I doubt if anything much in your...

block will change when you ponk it, writedown and sullied.... You're not fit to lick Fidel's boots.

[WriteDown]

3. Fidel was probably buried in his boots...

So I doubt that will be a problem.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. You're problems will only get worse with this downturn in the world

economy. Obviously the thought of sharing your loot scares you witless, and the poorer folk won't have the money to regenerate the economy, so look out for some nice, hefty taxes, won't you? Tee hee.

[WriteDown]

5. My wealth is quite safe....

But I've made the decision to have no kids which makes it MUCH easier. I do not have much problem with Fidel and I think the demonization and the deification of Cuba are both ridiculous. I do think Fidel is quite dead though.

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. Well, Im pleased for you that your problem with Fidel is quite small.

It can't be nice if it's big, and you're powerless to do anything about it but grizzle on DU and the like.

[IntravenousDemilo]

11. What does "when you ponk it, writedown and sullied" mean? n/m

[IndianaGreen]

10. Fidel dead?

Do you know something we don't know?

:eyes:

[IntravenousDemilo]

12. I also seem to have missed that memo. n/m

[Billy Burnett]

22. Some people say.

WD knows things about Cuba that absolutely no one else knows. :rofl:

[Billy Burnett]

16. What you know about Cuba (and Castro) would fit on the head of a very tiny pin - with room to spare.

http://graphics.boston.com:80/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2008/04/04/1207334270_6458.jpg

[Judi Lynn]

17. We would have read and heard even more about it if, outta nowhere, the Monica Lewinsky story didn't

leap into the headlines almost the moment the Pope went to Havana, and all the media quickly turned and stampeded back to Washington to get busy working on that pathetic crap.

They were almost all recalled instantly the moment the story broke, even though there were many U.S. citizens who had found a way to get to Cuba to be there for this event.

Anyone should be able to remember the Pope's visit to Havana, however.

http://news.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/olmedia/50000/images/_50480_pope_square300.jpg

He drew a crowd, didn't he?
From an article written then:

The Pope also urged an end to Cuba's political and economic isolation: "She needs to open herself to the world and the world needs to draw close to Cuba".

But he also condemned the "resurgence of a certain capitalist neo-liberalism which subordinates the human person to blind market forces" and "often places unbearable burdens upon less favoured countries.

"We thus see a small number of countries growing exceedingly rich at the cost of increasing impoverishment of a great number of countries."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/50480.stm

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Liberation theology is the only good thing to come out of the Catholic Church in years.

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. A wonderful movement. The catechism and theology can only be meaningful

when you and your family are not fighting for your life all the time, for want of food. The Church itself, while not wanting to make it a high-profile message, teaches that even stealing food in such circumstances is not a sin.

The main complaint, the most bitter and angry complaint, of Christ against the religious Establishment of his country and his day was that they had structured society to marginalise and cheat the poorer folk, often with new religious rules they made up, as and when it suited them; the fact that they were using Judaism itself for their own socio-economic aggrandisement, quite against the vast burden of scripture. Sometimes even to the detriment of their own aging parents.

[roody]

23. Also School of the Americas Watch!

Father Roy is my guru and hero. I'm an atheist. Thousands of Catholics attend the November Vigil in Columbus, GA.

[AlphaCentauri]

24. The Catholic Worker Movement and the New Sanctuary Movement n/t

[jwirr]

9. Liberation Theology?

[Judi Lynn]

15. Here's an excellent summary of a Catholic Archbishop who lived liberation theology, and died for it.

I'm certain most D.U.'ers who were conscious at the time remember him very clearly:

EL SALVADOR: Archbishop Oscar Romero was a traditional prelate when appointed to his position in El Salvador in the 70s. What made him exceptional as time passed was that he paid attention to the poor and disenfranchised in his congregation. He listened when they told him stories of family members kidnapped by government death squads when they tried to organize agricultural workers, or when they spoke out against government policies of repression. He looked at the pictures of the tortured bodies of civilians who opposed the repressive regime, and he wrote to the authorities asking for help to put an end to the fear and oppression in which his parishioners lived. When the government was unresponsive, he began to reflect on the need for these people to organize to obtain redress and change their situation. He realized that the conservative tradition of the Church in Latin America: allied to the plutocracy, catering to the rich, and helping the poor solely through the distribution of alms to those most needy, merely served to perpetuate injustice. He felt that the poor and powerless had the right to try and alter their situation through self-help organizations, through education and community action. He also felt that the Church had an obligation through its leadership to assist this process in concrete ways.

His efforts to serve these parishioners offended not only the repressive government and the upper classes, but even his wealthy parishioners (Opus Dei) who felt the Church was undermining their privileges. When he baptized Indian babies in the same baptismal font as the privileged white babies, they were outraged. His support of lay Catholic self-help groups was attacked as socialist activism. And, when he stood in the pulpit and called for an end to the violence against opposition groups by the government, he was shot down in broad daylight.

At his funeral, held on March 30, 1980 at the Cathedral, government troops opened fire on the overflow crowd. The massacre left 44 dead and hundreds wounded. Among the witnesses that day was Maryknoll lay missionary, Jean Donovan.

A year later, Jean Donovan, along with two Maryknoll nuns—Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel an Ursuline sister, were abducted, raped and shot to death by National Guardsmen. The next day peasants discovered their bodies alongside an isolated road buried in a shallow grave. Everyone familiar with the case knew that these women were killed by National Guardsmen and that it had to have been approved by the government.1 Yet, when the Pope visited El Salvador in 1983, he purposely refused to address the murder of his bishop, or those of Jean Donovan and the nuns. He pointedly said the purpose of the Church was to teach that Jesus is the Son of God and provide spiritual counsel to the flock. Privately, he met with the priests and nuns in El Salvador and told them to discontinue their involvement with community self-help groups. He replaced the murdered Archbishop Romero with a conservative, giving him identical instructions in an effort to restore the Church to its former alliance with those in power--no matter how corrupt or complicit in organized violence—for which the Church was notorious a century before.

More:
http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/hogan05.htm

[jwirr]

20. Yes and that attitude toward religion could work with many of the

philosophies of the left, including Castro.

[struggle4progress]

13. The article misrepresents the attitude of Cuban communists towards religion. Here's

an article by Castro from last month; the attitude indicated by the article is not a sudden new development


Fidel Castro's Reflection: The Russian Orthodox Church
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 21, 2008
7:40 p.m.

... when His Eminence Vladimir Mijailovich Gundiaev .. visited our country, I suggested building a Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in the capital of Cuba ...

... when the Cathedral was dedicated .. Sunday, I wanted to meet .. the esteemed personality of the Russian Orthodox Church visiting .. us.

Tomorrow, Thursday, he will be in Venezuela talking with President Chavez. Both draw inspiration from identical ethical principles derived from the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Gospels, a religious belief they both share ...

It was really .. rewarding to talk with him.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-CB-GEN-Cuba-Beatification.html?_r=1

[Billy Burnett]

21. The Catholic church pulled out of Cuba. Contrary to rumor, the church was never kicked out.

One of the first moves by the new revolutionary government in Cuba was to create a free universal education system. No school could charge a fee for education. The resulting loss of a profit center for the church in Cuba incited the "benevolent" Vatican to pull the church's school system out. Gawd forbid the church fund schools to provide free school to the illiterate children of Cuba.

Prior to the 1959 revolution...

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.
www.thegully.com/essays/cuba/000305cubastats59.html

[Taverner]

14. Trust me, the relationship isn't icy any more

I was in Cuba during their first Christmas, and all kinds of Mary Knoll and Liberation Theology Priests from all over the world were there.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Didn't know you are among the number of DU'ers, both American and otherwise,

who've gone to Cuba.

You can be sure there are a lot of us who envy your experience.

Hope you get the chance to return. From what I've heard, a lot of restoration to the old part of Havana has been accomplished by Eusebio Leal, their beloved historian, and director of restoration. They had to spend their resources originally on infrastructure, getting people healthy, educated, housed, fed, etc. first, and now are turning their attention to things like restoration. I've heard it's really an interesting process.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com.nyud.net:8090/images/2007/12/06/world/06havana-600.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/0gl5adKfaEgQg/610x.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com.nyud.net:8090/packages/images/photo/2007/12/06/1206-HAVANA/20868853.JPG

http://graphics8.nytimes.com.nyud.net:8090/images/2007/12/06/world/06havana.2-650.jpg

Eusebio Leal

[Taverner]

19. I went back in 98 and have been pining to go back since

Go if you can - just don't leave from the US or Mexico. Caracas is a good starting point ;)

Just bring cash - your credit cards are worthless there :)