Catholic leaders take different approaches to dictators Mugabe, Castro
Two Cuban Roman Catholic bishops, including Archbishop Jaime Ortega, recently used soft and fuzzy — and often frustratingly meaningless — words like "understanding" and "dialogue," to describe what Cuba needs most in the current period of "change."
"(E)very situation of change (in the island) would need a big understanding of the international community and a dialogue that allows us to go ahead in a civilized way," said assistant Bishop of Havana, Juan de Dios Hernandez, displaying a lack of understanding of the uncivilized nature of the Castro regime.
Maybe something got lost in the translation, but that sounds like the church is OK with the Castro brothers staying in power, no matter what it costs its flock.
Roman Catholic leaders in Zimbabwe — which also is ruled by a dictator, Robert Mugabe, who recently has turned up the oppression in order to stay in power — offer a more direct approach:
In what can be read only as a rebuke of the Cuban approach, the Rev. Oskar Wermter, a church official in Zimbabwe said Sunday: "We cannot yet say what the response of our congregations will be, but basic biblical teachings apply. Oppression is not negotiable. It must stop before there can be any dialogue."
Oppression is not negotiable.
That is a lesson church leaders in Cuba would do well to heed.
UPDATED
Pope Benedict XVI today mentioned the "grievous crisis" in Zimbabwe in his Easter address, Urbi et Orbi, (the City and the World).
And the situation in the tsunami-ravaged Solomon Islands.
And in Darfur.
And in East Timor.
And in Somalia.
And in Afghanistan.
And in Iraq.
But not a mention of Cuba.
Nada.
Makes you wonder from whom Archbishop Ortega and other leaders of the Cuban church are taking their cues.
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