A Special Report from Progreso Weekly
June 4, 2012 – On the occasion of the controversy raised by the pastoral line proposed by the Archdiocese of Havana and Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Progreso Weekly has asked for the opinion of several prestigious intellectuals: sociologist Aurelio Alonso, deputy editor of the magazine Casa de las Américas; economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a former political prisoner and government opponent; Cuban-Americans Carmelo Mesa Lago, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh; Arturo López-Levy, associate researcher at the University of Denver, and Americans Peter Hakim, director emeritus of Inter-American Dialogue, and Julia Sweig, senior fellow at the Nelson and David Rockefeller Center.
Beyond any legitimate disagreements about Cardinal Ortega’s statements at Harvard, is it acceptable to judge the 30 years of his leadership in the light of those five minutes into his appearance? Some steps in Cuba’s domestic politics in the past two years endorse the feasibility of this road built by the Cardinal Archbishop of Havana, based on a methodology of critical dialogue with the Cuban government and respect for – and promotion of – the national plurality. Ortega has the merit of having succeeded in opening communication channels between the Communist Party and the Catholic Church, an autonomous institution within the Cuban civil society.
This is recognized by the participants in this special report. Prof. Mesa-Lago ratifies his support for the Catholic Church programs that open spaces for respectful debate by Cubans inside and outside Cuba, with diverse ideas, in search of consensus and looking for the needed economic and social reforms that the country requires.
Espinosa Chepe thanks the Church for supporting the families of the prisoners when they were away from their homes; he also welcomes the participation of the magazines Lay Space and Palabra Nueva in the national debate, giving arguments but no offense.
Alonso believes that the Church has taken legitimate actions that the State has recognized, which is one reason why criticism of that institution has become more virulent.
Julia Sweig thinks the Cardinal Ortega has created a space for debate and dialogue in Cuba not just for Catholics.
Lopez-Levy argues that, given the courage to agree and discuss shown by Cardinal Ortega, the radical sectors have resorted to disqualification, lies and provocations to poison an environment where moderate positions and dialogue can bear fruit.
Hakim opines that, while Ortega made some unfortunate statements at Harvard, the fact remains that he is an extraordinary man who has already contributed significantly to change in Cuba.
We invite you to read the opinions of our interviewees.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh.
I have been in favor of dialogue among Cubans since 1978, when I went to Havana with a group that represented the [Cuban] community abroad. That meeting resulted in the release of thousands of political prisoners and the beginning of the reunification of Cuban families through travel, remittances and aid. Therefore, I support the programs and actions of the Catholic Church that open spaces for respectful debate by Cubans inside and outside Cuba, with different ideas, seeking consensus, by seeking the necessary social and economic reforms the country needs.
In this sense, Lay Space has played a crucial role and I have been fortunate to see several of my articles on that subject published there. I also had the opportunity to participate in Catholic Social Week in 2010, which was attended by 150 representatives from throughout the island. A fruitful academic discussion by Cuban-Americans with their counterparts living in Cuba took place then. I found wisdom in Lay Space editorial No. 2-2012, which asked for an end to the obstacles raised by the ideological apparatus of the PCC [Communist Party of Cuba] against the Archdiocese’s spaces, obstacles that blocked the participation of Cuban academics and intellectuals. I hope that the Church also opens itself to the participation in discussions by political dissidents living in Cuba who adopt documented and respectful positions.
Oscar Espinosa Chepe, economist, former political prisoner after the Trial of the 75, active member of the opposition to the Cuban government.
I think that the balance of the work of the Church is highly positive in the sense that the work the Archdiocese of Havana is doing to bring Cubans together, to serve as a bridge between different sectors of our society, is very favorable. So is the creation of the Felix Varela Cultural Center, where compatriots of different political ideas can debate in a responsible manner. I think this has been unique in Cuba for many years. I have no recollection of anything similar and I think it’s a real achievement. The magazines published by the Church, Lay Space and Palabra Nueva, have very correct viewpoints, containing criticism of the government itself, of the slow pace of reform, but made from an angle that’s not offensive. Their opinions are always based on real events, on irrefutable arguments.
We also know that the Archdiocese has promoted courses for self-employed workers, and has provided other courses, including Internet courses, in a very pluralistic, very open manner, without discrimination, without exclusions. I myself am an example of that. I am not Catholic but was given the opportunity to participate in many of these events, something for which I am very grateful. Furthermore, this is a line of action the Cuban Church has followed for a long time, pointing out and confronting many things that were badly done, working toward a society in which everyone can participate.
I myself felt this solidarity when I was in prison. The only organization within the country that voted in favor of us, the prisoners known as the Group of 75, was the Cuban Catholic Church, the one that opened its doors to our wives, our relatives, when they went to see us in the provincial prisons. It provided them with accommodations in Santiago de Cuba and everywhere else. It was also the Catholic Church that opened its doors to the Ladies in White at the Church of Santa Rita. And those are things we should remember; also previous opportunities when the Church behaved in a very dignified position, very calmly, with great responsibility, not in an aggressive spirit but saying things clearly. You have to read the documents of the Church from many years back and with all these elements make a more realistic assessment.
I think some people have been carried away by very superficial analyses. They may have been swept by despair, the desire for change, by the desire to quickly transform Cuba to what we all want: a democratic society. But that cannot be achieved with a magic wand, much less by insulting the entities that have been our allies, that have protected us all. And I repeat “us all” because I wish to stress that the Church has never prevented us Cubans, even if we have different beliefs or philosophies, from coming together and sharing. This is a really valuable thing that I personally appreciate.
Julia Sweig, senior fellow at the Nelson and David Rockefeller Center. Director of Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.
Unfortunately, in the context of the debate in the United States about the future of Cuba, the term “civil society” has become a substitute for an aggressive ideological and partisan version of anticommunism. For those who will be satisfied only with a Cuban version of de-Baathification, or a radical, even violent overhaul of Cuba’s political, economic and social model, the only legitimate voices or institutions of civil society in Cuba are those that wear loudly and proudly the mantle of opposition to the regime.
Unfortunately, American taxpayers are financing the editorial statements of Radio Marti, for example, which attacked Cardinal Ortega, the Archdiocese of Havana and the Felix Varela Center as “lackeys” of the Cuban government. I laughed when I read the word “lackey” because it is a term that comes from the 1950s, during the politicking – not politics – that existed in Batista’s Cuba. It is a polarizing term that I was also sad to see as part of any speech at any place connected with Cuba.
In the past fifteen years, I have been deeply impressed by the spirit of magnanimity and wisdom shown by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, a man I consider my friend. But, far beyond friendship, Cardinal Ortega has created a space for debate and dialogue in Cuba, not just for Catholics. His efforts to help the release of political prisoners, not only in recent years but throughout his time in office, has been effective and even heroic.
He has also become a key partner for the international community. Cuba is going through a period of significant change. I think there is more room for disagreement, dissent and the clash of ideas than at any time since I started traveling to the island in 1984. The Archdiocese is an institution of civil society that has helped create that space.
However, because of [Ortega’s] civilized approach to building a more open society, to rejecting confrontation and radicalism, the ideological flames of blind anticommunism have been fueled. Unfortunately, in an apparent case of arson, these same flames engulfed Airline Brokers in Miami, the travel agency that took pilgrims to Cuba for the visit of Pope Benedict.
The political attack on the Archdiocese of Havana and the leadership of Cardinal Ortega represents a major step backwards in the process of reconciliation that he has successfully conducted so far. I never thought it possible.
Aurelio Alonso, sociologist, writer, deputy editor of the magazine Casa, published by Casa de las Américas.
In the context of the projections of the political sphere to religion and believers in Cuba, we know that the Fourth Congress of the PCC in 1991 and the constitutional reform of 1992 represented a substantive change. It was not tactical steps but an in-depth correction in concept and strategy. For its part, the Catholic Church had also gone through a process of pastoral strengthening culminating with the expansion of the diocesan structure, the appointment of Cardinal, the growth of the intelligentsia and Catholic publications, and the Pope’s first pastoral visit, to mention what I consider to be the most eloquent milestones, along with a densification of the mass of believers. I would summarize that by saying that the recovery process that occurred in Cuba’s religious life in the 1990s generally meant for Catholicism the rescue of its institutional weight in tune with the socio-political system.
In other words, from the Church’s specificity, without representing subordination, doctrinal surrender or renunciations typical of understandings that can occur between a church that bases its positions on its own social doctrine and the socialist state. Recall that the visit of John Paul II to Cuba in 1998 ran into enemies, or at least explicit and implicit censorship. Criticism was expressed because the Cuban socialist state – resistant to the collapse of the Soviet socialist experiment – allowed the Church to play its role in the social scene, and because the Church assumed its proper leading role in that scenario. Between the first and the second papal visit, the local Church has made progress in taking actions that are completely legitimate, and the socialist state has acknowledged them. The criticism has become more virulent, and has even led to illegal acts of sabotage against Church facilities.
By turning against the Church with the arguments used against the state, the voices of intransigence are revealing the inhumane nature of their own positions. The hardliners do not protest in the name of freedom and democracy, but on behalf of subordination to their hegemony in the name of social deprivation, of a state of economic siege without truce or finality, of the liquidation of the hopes of development, of the unlimited and devastating abuse of the environment and of everything that in the last decade has become the engine of rebellion and resistance in the peoples of our America.
We would be naive to think that these are stances that we can eliminate in public debate. We must strip them and discuss them, but we must know that they will be there, repeatedly, and must be ready to confront them wherever they appear. To defend the positions of justice and equity, the common good, understanding and cooperation, peace and genuine freedom is a long-long-term challenge that will require all social actions that can be undertaken. In effect, the Cardinal, the [Havana] Archbishopric and the Cuban Church are being attacked today for their human actions, which are Christian actions. That’s what I think. Like them, I feel attacked. And, like them, I respond.
Arturo López-Levy, academician, associate researcher at the University of Denver, Colorado.
Several advances in Cuban politics in the last two years have vindicated the constructive position of Cardinal Jaime Ortega and the Catholic Church, based on a patriotic methodology of dialogue and respect for plurality. In contrast to the ineffectiveness of those actors who prefer contentiousness and even adopt positions that are either ambiguous or favorable to the U.S. embargo, the Church’s patient dialogue with the government not only achieved the release of prisoners in the spring of 2003 but also opened new communication channels between the Communist Party and the organization with the largest membership in Cuban civil society.
As a result of these achievements, which broke the logic of confrontation, Cardinal Ortega has earned the respect of the overwhelming majority of Cubans on the island and the diaspora. The dialogue he started on May 19, 2010, culminated in the patient and gradual construction by Cuban religious communities of various forms of rapprochement between the different components of the Cuban nation.
Rejecting the subversive logic contained in the Helms-Burton Law, which – as one of its creators, former Secretary of State Roger Noriega, confessed – requires a period of “instability and chaos” in Cuba, Cuba’s religious communities opted early and patiently for the formation of patriotic identities that are simultaneously conscious of the social plurality.
Resisting the simplistic caricatures of angels and demons in Cuban politics, which in the 1960s led to civil war, the congregations of the faith have chosen to provide society with a culture of human rights, faith and patriotic duty. That culture, not the imposition of results dictated a priori, is the best contribution to the process of building a democratic Cuba.
No wonder then that the forces interested in factional triumphs more than in the promotion of national interests react with hostility to the Church’s agenda of reconciliation. Faced with the courage to agree and discuss shown by Cardinal Ortega, the radical sectors have resorted to disqualification, lies and provocations to poison an environment where moderate positions and dialogue can bear fruit. They lack a positive agenda and dream of a period of “chaos and instability,” with a disloyal hope that the worse things are for Cuba, the better things will be for the kind of opposition that they propose.
The politically inspired sit-ins at several Catholic churches on the eve of the papal visit were immediately hailed by Mauricio Claver Carone, the pro-embargo lobbyist par excellence, as “a downpour at the Cardinal’s party.” That is the context that led to the explanations given by Cardinal Ortega in his lecture at Harvard University, where he was invited because of the respect he generated since the Pope’s visit to Cuba.
Members of the so-called “republican party of Cuba” were not seeking refuge in the temples they tried to occupy, as happened in other countries or in Cuba in the past. They simply acted as “spoilers”, imposing a pattern of confrontation that might frustrate the creation of an environment of dialogue that would lead the world to open to Cuba, and improve relations between the different components of the Cuban nation, on the island and the diaspora.
Because that strategy of thwarting reconciliation failed, prior to the visit of Benedict XVI (a visit that was welcomed by a significant section of the diaspora, including Msgr. Thomas Wenski, Bishop of Miami), the merchants of confrontation have focused on attacking and defaming the figure of Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Their vengeful idea is to make the Cardinal pay dearly for his projects of reconciliation and his patriotism, damaging the credibility of the Catholic Church and Cuban religious communities in any future talks.
It is logical then that Radio Marti, [the website] State of SATS and the entire troupe of “spoilers” aim insults at His Eminence of the kind they previously aimed only at Fidel Castro. It’s just what they did against Nelson Mandela, President Jimmy Carter or even cultural personalities like Juanes or Billy Joel. It is not that they believe that the Cardinal is a Cuban agent; they know well that they lie. It is that if the projects of reconciliation promoted by the Cardinal succeed, they would have to dismantle the structures of hostility on both sides of the Straits of Florida. And that would really be the worst defeat for the industries of hate.
Therefore, the best response from the pro-reconciliation, pro-reform community should be not reactive but proactive. Instead of engaging in spurious debates with increasingly irrelevant verbal radicalism, the Church and government should renew efforts for dialogue, moving responsibly toward broader apertures. After walking all the time with their hand extended to every patriot, a discipline inherent in a rational posture of dialogue and reconciliation requires not being distracted by responding to personal attacks and insults that lack the slightest ethical, political and intellectual consistence.
In a national dialogue, the patriotic bases are as important as the recognition of legitimate differences. Looking ahead, the Church-State dialogue will require greater creativity. An essential element is to lower false expectations because the low-hanging mangoes already have been picked. (This applies to religious holidays and public pilgrimages that have much symbolism for the Church yet are of relatively low concern for the government’s more doctrinaire sectors.)
A test case of the government’s willingness to open up legitimate spaces to the increasing plurality within Cuban society will be its response to the Catholic Church’s requests to enter the field of education as an institution. The Church’s conception in this area is not confrontational but implies a significant change in relation to the government’s near monopoly in the formation of the new generations. In this regard, an important indicator of maturity in the Church-State dialogue is whether its leaders are able to articulate a system of postgraduate training under religious guidance in areas of social and economic impact.
A major challenge for the Cuban Catholic Church will be to mobilize leaders and intellectuals abroad to defend its posture of dialogue within the diaspora. It is truly unfortunate that after all the efforts of Cardinal Ortega to open talks with the Cuba Study Group or the authors of the report “Diaspora and Development” published by FIU, none of these groups’ members has come out, without ambiguity, in defense of the Cardinal’s dialogical position, from which they have benefited. In the political sense, perhaps the Church should demand from them more firmness and cooperation, in view of the spaces it has given them. José Martí, who said that moderation was the spirit of Cuba, defended that position without false delicacy. Cuba needs a pro-reconciliation center as strong as the extremes that are trying to destroy it.
Peter Hakim, Director Emeritus of Inter-American Dialogue, Washington, D.C.
I don’t see any other way to achieve a successful and peaceful change in Cuba in the short term. What else could lead to a relaxation of political constraints and a sustained democratic opening? Without dialogue, participation and reconciliation, it is difficult to see another way, except violence or political stagnation. The role assumed by the Cuban Church reminds me of the Chilean Church during the Pinochet years, when it tried to protect the regime’s opponents, opening up spaces for citizens to exercise their rights to freedom of speech, assembly, etc., and encouraging the regime to relax its restrictions on political activity. Despite the contradictions and daily conflicts between these objectives, the Church succeeded beyond everyone’s expectations. In Cuba, the road is harder for many historical and geographical reasons, but that is why the Church’s efforts are so important.
The Cardinal made some unfortunate statements at Harvard, not only because they were insulting to some courageous individuals, but also because they may hinder the work of the Church in Cuba and diminish U.S. support for its work. But nobody is absolutely right all the time. The Cardinal is an extraordinary man who has already contributed significantly to change and decency in Cuba. The problem for the Cardinal, and for anyone who promotes dialogue and reconciliation, is that the conflict is so long and the dividing gap has become so deep that the words, instead of serving as a form of understanding and commitment, have become weapons to destroy adversaries.
The most virulent reactions to the Cardinal’s comments came from those who consistently have sought to oppose and discredit the church leader. His words in Cambridge were new weapons for them. Their reaction is one reason for the Church and the Cardinal to redouble their efforts. No one else can carry out or devote himself to carrying out the task that they have set for themselves.
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