The Pope Meets with the Castro Brothers after Criticizing Ideologies
By Isaac Risco (dpa)
HAVANA TIMES — The most political part of Pope Francis’ visit to the Cuba came to a close on Sunday. Public criticisms levelled at ideologies before thousands of people marked the Pope’s second day on the socialist island. Hours later, His Holiness also had one of the most anticipated meetings of his trip, an encounter with Fidel Castro.
The visit to the home of Cuba’s historical leader was made prior to his meeting with President Raul Castro, who had welcomed the pontiff on Saturday and attended the Pope’s mass at Revolution Square very early on Sunday. Opposition activists reported arrests during the ceremony.
The open-air mass was one of the most highly awaited moments of Francis’ four-day visit to the island. People were particularly interested in hearing the pastoral message of his address, in which his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, made allusions to Cuba’s social and political realities (in 1998 and 2012, respectively).
Pope Francis did this also. The Argentine Jesuit chose “service unto others” as the issue of his homily, which included criticisms that may be interpreted as political.
“There’s a way of helping which stems from an interest in benefiting my “own,” in the name of what’s “ours,” Francis said.
“This kind of service always leaves “your kind” out, leading to a process of exclusion,” he regretted. “That is why help is never ideological, as one does not serve ideas, one serves people.” The homily was pronounced before a multitude that the Vatican later reported was made up of some 200,000 people.
The mass was attended by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, personally invited by Raul Castro, as well as by hundreds of invitees from the high echelons of the socialist government and tens of thousands of church-goers and curious people, who arrived at the square hours in advance.
“We stayed up all night so we could make it,” Ana Maria Ferrer, a 52-year-old Catholic woman from Havana told DPA. Cuban authorities also deployed buses to transport government sympathizers to Havana’s renowned square, known, among other things, for its gigantic metal relief sculpture of Che Guevara.
Later in the day, opposition groups reported that several dissident activists had been arrested. Some 20 activists from the Ladies in White opposition ground were arrested at around five in the morning while heading to the square, Berta Soler, the group’s leader, told DPA.
On her Twitter account, dissident Martha Beatriz Roque accused authorities of detaining her while trying to reach the Havana Cathedral. The church confirmed it had invited Roque to take part in a function that Pope Francis would take part in, adding it was not aware of the detentions.
During the afternoon event held at the Cathedral, as well as during the gathering with hundreds of young people at the nearby Felix Varela Cultural Center, the Pope appeared jovial and relaxed. At several moments throughout the day, the pontiff had been tired, spokesman Lombardi had announced. “But, when he starts to speak spontaneously, he has tremendous energy,” he added.
Francis put aside the speech he’d prepared to address the young. “Let us learn to accept that we think differently,” His Holiness told those present, calling on them not to allow themselves to “become locked in the cloisters of ideologies.” The Pope Mobile had been received with cries of joy around Old Havana, after the Pope emerged from his meeting with Raul Castro at the Palacio de la Revolucion.
The much-awaited and never-confirmed visit to Fidel Castro’s home in Havana’s west supposedly took place following the mass. It was a very relaxed and “informal” gathering that lasted around 30 to 40 minutes, the Vatican spokesman explained. Castro and the Pope exchanged books as gifts.
Cuba’s official media later broadcast images of the encounter between the 78-year-old Pope and 89-year-old former leader of Cuba, where several of Castro’s relatives were present.
Francis will travel to Holguin today as part of his historic visit to Cuba. The Argentine Pope will hold another open-air mass there before heading to the city of Santiago de Cuba, where his trip will come to a close. On Tuesday, Francis will depart for the United States.
Fully agree with you. Of course the pope had to use the chance to meet Fidel Castro. If you only ever speak to people you agree with how will you be able to change the world for the better? It was his duty to meet with Fidel Castro. If I had the chance I would do as well and ask Fidel Castro to his face why he insisted on the state murder of three silly young black men who hijacked the ferry to Regla. it was an act of vindictive murder full stop.
The Israelites were indeed in enslaved in Egypt, and archeological evidence supports this historical fact, however the facts are somewhat different than the story as told in Exodus. Archeological evidence shows that there were several groups of Israelites in Egypt and that they left over a period of several centuries: let my people go, and go, and go….etc. The story of Moses is a legend based on facts, but not all the facts.
I agree with you on communism NJ. It really is a very bad system. I would
be right at the front lines to rid my country of the enslavement it perpetrates and forget what it did to religion when Castro came to power in the early sixties. We need to open up our country to Cuba and change will happen!
Embargo is absurd and the restriction for traveling by all US citizens is
a personal affront!
In free enterprise capitalism your boss controls your destiny. To not understand this is to wish to be a slave while thinking you’re in a democratic system.
Communism is a FUTURE state that can only come into existence following the replacement of free-enterprise and state capitalism with socialism. You don’t understand this basic truth.
State capitalism as practiced in Cuba provides the basics of life as undemocratically decided upon by those in the upper reaches of power.
FEC will never provide the basics of life to the people under it because accumulating money is the most important feature of FEC. .
We agree that Cuba’s system is totalitarian with government officials acting as private owners do in FEC confiscating and redistributing the profits made by the workers.
Where we disagree is I believe free-enterprise capitalism is more totalitarian than Cuba’s state form and you seem to believe that FEC is somehow not totalitarian but is somehow democratic.
Griffin,
The essence, the meaning of my (mis) quote was correct.
If you place the love of money higher than the love of your fellow man, you’re going straight to Christian Hell.
Agreed, manna is God-provided sustenance
Mammon is wealth.
and FYI, The Israelites were never enslaved in Egypt as proven by extensive fairly recent Israeli archaeological searches.
The Moses story is a huge baseless fiction.
You misquoted the Bible. Again.
King James Bible:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
That’s mammon, not manna. Mammon is wealth. Manna was the miraculous bread which fed the wondering Israelites when they escaped from Egypt. The Bible is quite correct on this point, the worship of wealth is wrong. Money is useful, even necessary, but it is immoral to place it above God.
Communism is a bankrupt system. It is no longer even a question. Corporate statism can be just as oppressive, but a free market system where individuals control their own destiny is not.
Only one blinded by his or her faith could even consider that this Pope who evidently supports the Castro family regime, adds lustre to the Catholic Church. To provide succour to a pair of totalitarian dictators who have oppressed the people of Cuba for fifty six long sad dreary years, removing all hope of freedom, all hope of improved lives is shameful. The Castros and the Communist Party of Cuba will now exploit his amicable recognition of them to the hilt. Watch!
Perhaps coming from a country which gave refuge and hospitality to the National Socialists who fled from Germany after it’s defeat in 1945, receiving assistance from the then Pope and the Vatican, this man considers that his recognition of repressive dictators is comparatively acceptable.
To those who are concerned about the freedom of mankind and a future for all peoples, his demonstrated affiliations are a disgust. But, his supporters think that they will go to heaven by accepting his actions as those of the Catholic proclaimed Vicar of Christ! His soul needs all the prayers it can get!
The Pope’s anti capitalism stems from his belief in and the following of the teachings of Christ which says that it is more difficult for a rich man to enter heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle and that the highest calling is to provide for the poor and disadvantaged. Try reading the Gospels sometime so you can understand what Christ taught and why the Pope has so much more in common with Cuba’s egalitarian distribution of necessities to all than he does with fuck-the-poor capitalism.
If you support ( greed-based) free enterprise capitalism , you necessarily oppose the teachings of Christ
OTOH,.
If you support free-enterprise (US) capitalism, you also support totalitarianism upon which all religions are based but especially Christianity. The punishment in Christianity for not believing is eternal hell; sort of like what living with Moses must be like.
I believe that Cuba’s state capitalism needs democratic reform and not replacement with an even worse free-enterprise capitalism which has no chance for reform.
While Cuba’s state capitalist economic form is as totalitarian as the U.S. free-enterprise capitalism in its top-down operation, Cuba’s SC ( state capitalism ) guarantees the basics of life to EVERY man, woman and child in Cuba .
To a true Christian, these provisions to the poorest are the following of Christ’s plain and direct teachings .
To a capitalist , it is giving away money that could be in his Swiss bank account
Francis is not into fascist ideology as were his predecessors ( Hitler got yearly birthday greetings from the Pope until Hitler died and Mussolini, Franco and Salazar were all Catholics in good stead )
This Pope is not playing along with capitalism because he recognizes that capitalism is the economic form used in the vast majority of the world and it has half the world’s population barely surviving on $US 2.00 per day while the .001% own about 80% of everything.
To repeat a quote from the Bible:
“Ye cannot worship God and manna ”
I suspect you’d want the Pope to convert them to capitalism .
because you worship capitalism.
It’s not very Christian of you.
The Castro Brothers
.
Seeing the Pope in his nominal (political) role as the head of the Vatican State, I would staunchly oppose his meeting with the current and former heads of Cuba. Raul presides over an unjust, communist, totalitarian government, as did Fidel, who was also a ruthless murderer. But seeing the Pope in his essential role, as the Vicar of Christ, our blessed Pontiff, I am suddenly struck by how very apt it is for him to meet, privately, particularly with Fidel, who is among the notorious sinners of our age. For this insight I must thank Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith of the Catholic Herald U.K. I recommend his post: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/09/21/why-did-pope-francis-meet-fidel-castro/ I will pray for Pope Francis, for the conversion of the Castro brothers, and through them for the conversion of Cuba. (While I’m at it, I think I will also resume praying for the conversion of Russia, as we used to pray for the conversion of the U.S.S.R.)
It’s too late for the Castros to worry about their legacy. The world is and will remain split between those who see the Castros as heroes who stood up to imperialism and the rest of us who know them for their cruel and destructive dictatorship. The Castros should instead be concerned about keeping their heads attached to their bodies.
The primitive Communism model of the 1960’s is a bankrupt system not just in it’s lack of productivity but it’s spiritual underpinning. The Catholic Church provides a new underpinning for an economic model that seeks to preserve aspects of socialism while searching for ways to create an incentive system for workers. A new monetized system will need a check to keep materialism from getting out of control on an island long deprived by a failed system. The Pope’s anti capitalism stance serves the regime’s aims.
As usual, each listener will make his own interpretation of the Pope’s allusions. The Castros are no different in that respect. Raul’s smug self satisfaction is evident in the photographs and Fidel having been ex-communicated in 1982 is happily able to introduce his family to the Pope in a private audience – filmed by the Castros for publication. Two old Jesuits each interpreting the event for their own purposes.
I think Pope Francis made some big points without beating around the bush by saying that people, in this case the Castros, should think more about serving their people than their ideology. Ideology won’t put food on the table, but finding ways of helping and serving people is really what is important in life and should be what the leaders need to be focused on. Service to others should be the Cuban leaders’ legacy. I hope they were listening.