The Cuban Church: “A song of hope”
The Cuban Church: “A song of hope”
By Romy Aranguiz
From Emilio Ichikawa’s blog
The Catholic Church and Cardinal Jaime Ortega have been the target of vile attacks that question the constructive role they have played in our national history. The mere contrast between those that prioritize hate and revenge–denying all legitimacy to Cubans that even feel represented by their government–, and those of us who opt for dialog is evidence of the lack of balance of those attacks and how misguided are those who reject the support of the Church to a gradual process of reforms.
A recently published article expresses that the Espacio Laical editorial “The Commitment to Truth” assigns to the Church a political prominence and that the alleged prominence has expelled from the negotiating table those that call themselves “civil society”. Besides being false, the claim by Alexis Jardines (AJ) and Antonio Rodiles (AR) is a rampant oversimplification. The editorial mentions the important role played by the Church and does not praise it as central for a simple reason: the Church has not been a protagonist, but a mediator in the turbulent years that the Island has lived.
If Espacio Laical’s editorial emphasizes the figure of Jaime Ortega, it is because he has been the target of fierce attacks. In a context fraught with arrogance, for decades Cardinal Ortega has been committed to dialog as a solution to conflicts, even while those who attack him now were fervent Communists. It is curious also that those who attack the Church and Espacio Laical were until recently contributors to the magazine. (AJ has contributed with Espacio at least three times and has participated in two events sponsored by the magazine, as well as AR.)
The Church has not excluded the “civil society” from anything. In the first place, because it is civil society’s most relevant and numerous organization. Second, because the dialog between the Church and the State is just that –a necessary and useful conversation between those two important institutions whose participants are those who both parties agree on. Fortunately, Cardinal Ortega has been wise enough not to listen to the voices of those that, intoxicated in hallucinating “Estados de SATS” expect to embrace much but solve nothing. Since June 2010 to the present, at least 126 prisoners have been set free, and there are talks between the government and the Church on the present economic and political transformations. For the benefit of believers, this dialog has increased religious freedoms, placing the country’s standards close to those included in Article 18 of the Declaration on Human Rights. It is then the Cuban civil society (the same that AJ and AR claim that the Church obliterates) the main “beneficiary” of Cardinal Ortega’s endeavors.
Prisoners also have benefitted –as the Ladies in White had requested– for there is an inescapable fact: they are free and with their families. The believers have benefitted, for now they have more freedom and temples to practice religion. The civil society has benefitted, for their opinions are expressed in concrete proposals in the articles and debates of the Catholic press, such as Espacio Laical and Palabra Nueva, as AJ and AR should know (espaciolaical.org/contens/24/2223.pdf). The Cuban people in the diaspora and the Cuban people in the Island have benefitted, for they have been invited to converge in participating events open to the public in general, not only to believers. If the work of Cardinal Ortega and of the Cuban Catholic Church keeps insisting on this dialog that favors the reconciliation of the Cuban people, the majority of Cubans will continue to support it,
Church and civil society: more than two opposites
Cuban civil society is much more than a couple of dozen citizens meeting in an expropriated house in Miramar in order to experience catharsis against the government. Only Christian humility prevents us from answering arrogance with arrogance, and compare the extent of the Church’s publications, or the years of courses and patient work in the parishes with a couple of acts, sometimes with scant knowledge of their speakers, organized by our fellow countryman Rodiles. Yet, based on my experience, I will reveal facts that AJ and AR insist on ignoring.
In the 1990s, a wonderful universe of knowledge was opened to me in the classroom of St. Augustine Parrish, Playa Municipality, where Catechism and other matters were taught. A major part of my humanist vision of life comes from those years, when I dedicated most of my Sundays, as well as other days in the week, to study religion, cultivate love for our country, national culture, the city and other subjects. Besides faith, many like me received from the Church a thirst for knowledge and for a supportive and democratic nationalism –two of the most important gifts that can be granted to a human being in his or her years of adolescence. At the same time that I grew as a Catholic I matured as a citizen. The formative work of the Church, mother and educator, went much beyond the limits of religion. The Catholic Church contributed to the formation of the Cuban civil public space through the securing of a pastoral with the objective of civil strengthening of Cuban society. The formative work of the Church is a project of sowing consciences and virtues in the spirit of Félix Varela. As a doctor and a Cuban I have seen the impact of Caritas Cuba since its creation in 1991. Its goal is to help the most affected and to provide through donations key medical products that cannot be obtained any other way. What some lay people call “the capillarity of the Church” reaches every corner of the country. You do not have to be a Catholic nor a cardinal to receive its benefits. You only have to be a simple citizen –no matter your ideology– to be part of this expansive project that extends well beyond the limits of temples.
This dynamic of capillarity is not unidirectional. Those who benefit from it receive an explanation of the Church’s social doctrine and the respect, in the spirit of José Martí, for the full dignity of citizens. Nothing is demanded in exchange. Rarely does someone that benefits from a loving project becomes a hostile and selfish citizen. Rarely those favored by the Church’s aid programs leaves a dining room or a lay home for an act of repudiation or of destructive opposition in anger, for its civil conscience is in favor of freedom with order. On the contrary, they want to become part of this new civility that at the same time is the basis for a more complete society.
The Church is not a bishop or an editorial, although they represent it well. It is formed by hundreds of thousands of lay people and priests who with their failures and virtues contribute to multiply, in the society to which they belong, standards of loving dialog and democratic citizenship.
A more plural Cuba, the embargo and the Church
In the approach to the rest of the Cuban civil society, of which it is a central part, the Church is dedicated to the respect of plurality. In that methodology that expects everything from love, the bishops have promoted the expansion of a culture of life, responsible freedom, and realistic dialog. I urge those who doubt it to read and discuss numerous pastoral letters. This does not mean that the Church should have an equidistant or neutral posture regarding all political positions. In the same manner that bishops and lay people defend human rights from the point of view of the Church’s social doctrine, in full concordance with Christian values, the Church demands the ending of “immoral and counterproductive” economic sanctions, fostered by revanchist sectors of the Cuban American community.
No wonder then that coincidental with the Holy Father’s and his predecessors’’ position, Espacio Laical would demand from any legitimate opponent to condemn the embargo and the strategies of subversion coupled to it. It is a surprising, if not embarrassing, that after fifty years of the wretched embargo that has cost so much to Cuba, including as an obstacle to reforms, AR and AJ question the rejection of such a policy as “another one of (Espacio Laical’s) manipulative arguments”. Demonstrating that the combination of ignorance and daring is a fatal political irresponsibility, they ask themselves: “Why should we repudiate the punishment of a government that does not show any interest in improving its citizens’ conditions and instead spares no resources for its repressive forces?”
Anyone that reads UN reports on the effect of the embargo on the Cuban people’s human rights and standard of living would be faced with a great ethical and intellectual challenge in adopting such an ambiguous position. But speaking of reasoning, it would be interesting to see what AR and AJ are going to say to defend such a policy that shows no interest in defending Cuban human rights. I hope that instead of avoiding the issue they delve on it. To accept the embargo is to validate the historical intervening character of the US in relation to Cuba. Espacio Laical does well in rejecting Plattism and demanding of all Cubans a patriotic stance. Anyone who disagrees with the government has the right to say so, but it is no justification for apostasy, condemned by our Apostle José Martí when he was barely an adolescent. Those who are ambiguous on the matter of Plattism and grant the United States prerogatives that are exclusive of national Cuban sovereignty, of which national dialog they want to be part? Certainly this is a difficult question for those that hide behind the joke of a stale “post nationalism” in a world where national states are still the main units of power; those who express that both the concept of “Cuban nation” as well as the one of the “coat of arms and the lone star flag” makes no sense.
As a Cuban and American medical doctor, loving both my countries, I would not consider any other option that the unconditional lifting of the sanctions that affect the Cuban people. I am a proud member of the community organization Cuban Americans for Engagement (CAFE), a group that works for ending US policies of hostility towards Cuba and undue intervention in Cuban internal affairs. It would be the best for the development, aperture and human rights in Cuba.
Let there be no doubt for Cardinal Ortega and our brothers and sisters at Espacio Laical: the Church of the patriotic and reconciliatory message with a responsibility in the spirit of Martí that demands of the government urgent and necessary changes, and that does not share the ambiguous position of opponents regarding the Plattism of the Helms-Burton law, is seen on this side of the Straits as a song of hope.
-Photo: Romy Aranguiz and Cardinal Ortega. Author’s archive.
Romy Aranguiz is a Cuban medical doctor living in Massachusetts.
