Leftist Activist Wins Cuban Catholic Church Contest
HAVANA TIMES — Cuban activist and theorist Pedro Campos wound up as the winner of the 2012 Casa Cuba essay contest sponsored in Havana by the Catholic magazine Espacio Laical and the Centro Cultural Padre Felix Varela.
The jury awarded him for his writing titled “Dialogue, Reconciliation and Democratization: Parallel Paths.” On Monday on the magazine’s online supplement, he was noted for having provided “an integrated look of the processes experienced by the Cuban nation in recent decades and its prospects.”
The competition granted an honorable mention to theorist Felix Sautie (who along with Campos is a member of the Participatory and Democratic Socialism group), and it recognized the value of the work of essayists Armando Chaguaceda and Raul Mesa.
The jury was composed of Father Ariel Suarez, the vice rector of the Catholic Seminary San Carlos and San Ambrosio; Dmitri Prieto, an anthropologist, Havana Times writer and a Critical Observatory Network activist; and Roberto Veiga, the editor of Espacio Laical.
Hearty congratulations to comrade Campos for achieving the imprimatur of the implacably reactionary and anti-socialist Catholic church on his socialism. It’s really quite exceptional for a left-wing activist to produce writing as appealing to Catholic ideologists as his essay has proved to be.
It must be specially gratifying for the Havana Times to count amongst its contributors both the winner and one of the judges of this world-shaking competition, which is probably more prestigious than the Nobel Prize … the peace prize at least.
This ideological triumph will be a source of great pride not just for comrade Campos but also for God, the Havana Times and the entire anti-Cuban blogosphere.