Conduct unbecoming a diplomat

HAVANA — Some 20 years ago, I heard the name Lecce for the first time, from the lips of an Italian friend, a philosophy professor from the ancient city of Otranto, in the very heel of the boot formed by the Italian peninsula. Lecce, he said, was an old village whose charms made him proud.

I couldn’t help but remember that when I received a message on Aug. 26 directing me to an item in the newspaper Lecce News 24 that quoted statements by Msgr. Bruno Musarò, the Vatican’s Nuncio in Cuba, during an open-air Mass in the town of Vignacastrisi.

I shall not expand on the load of distortion, biased speculation and contemptuous tone used against the reality of Cuban society and the injurious and offensive charges made against the political authorities before whom the Nuncio allegedly performs diplomatic duties.

They are simply indicative of an extremely adverse stance, the extreme that we’re familiar with, which leaves no room for discussion. I am among those who think that everyone is free to form an opinion, tendentious or deformed though it may be, and to express it. But I am also aware that this could be incompatible with the performance of some official responsibilities.

The fact is that 10 days have elapsed since those statements without a word of either support or disavowal from the Vatican Department of State or any other competent entity, if any exists. Nor has there been an answer from the Cuban Foreign Ministry to the unprecedented words attributed to Nuncio Musarò.

To my knowledge, the Cuban bishops have issued no statement, though this is more understandable. In formal terms, this is a matter of relations between the two States and one could say that it is not the bishops’ place to intercede, though surely they have opinions and, I imagine, freedom to express them.

I can interpret the Cuban authorities’ silence as a way to leave room for the correction of an act that normally would lead to the expulsion of an ambassador, and I wonder if our bishops will also see it this way.

The fact is that the Nuncio — appointed by Benedict XVI — has not returned to the island where he has spent three years, and which he expects “to leave after the socialist regime is finally gone.”

I feel sorry for Cuban Catholics that someone so negatively biased, in terms of the reality and the destiny of Cuba, has been entrusted with advising Pope Francis on the choice of a successor to the Archbishop of Havana, who is about to retire.

*An effigy of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre was placed in the Vatican Gardens near the Jubilee Bell on Aug. 28, in a ceremony attended by 10 Cuban bishops. During the act, a prayer was said and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, former Vatican Secretary of State, addressed the attendees.