THE STATUE: It’s now 403 years old and stands just over a foot (35 centimeters) tall, but the petite wooden statue in a small-town church in eastern Cuba is among the most venerated Catholic icons in the world and an object of pride and reverence for hundreds of thousands on the island. Protected inside a glass case, she wears a full, golden dress and her feet rest on a shimmering crescent moon.
HAVANA (AP) — Pope Francis issued a strong critique of the church before the College of Cardinals just hours before it selected him as the new pontiff, according to comments published Tuesday by a Roman Catholic magazine in Cuba.
“What does a pope do?” Castro asked Benedict, who is just one year his junior. The pontiff told him of his ministry, his foreign trips and his service to the Church, saying he was happy to be in Cuba and with the welcome he received.
Dressed in a dark Reebok track suit and wearing a scarf despite the searing heat outside, Castro told the pontiff he had watched his whole visit on television. Two of his children were also presented to the pope.
Castro handed the reins of power to his younger brother, President Raul Castro, four years ago and he has since largely retired from government but he still writes columns and meets with visiting leaders. He told the pontiff he was spending most of his time reading and reflecting on the state of the world.
Editor’s note: Approximately 50 years ago, Fidel Castro led the bloody, Cuban revolution while Father Joseph Ratzinger did his part in the Catholic revolution, commonly known as Vatican II. Both have been intimately involved in “propping up” their respective works, ever since.
HAVANA, Cuba — Pope Benedict XVI wraps up his visit to Cuba on Wednesday with an open-air Mass in the shrine of the Cuban revolution, hoping to revive the Catholic faith in this communist-run country. His other appointment promises a far more tantalizing climax: a meeting with Fidel Castro.
Editor’s note: Pope Benedict, Raul Castro and Fidel Castro are all in their 80’s. If they intend to make some progress, they better do it now!
Castro likes to boast about Cuba’s free education and free national health care … but he fails to mention that the only reason those two social programs exist is so the people can continue to effectively work for the benefit of the state, as virtual slaves.
Christianity has always been God’s perfect antidote to slavery of every kind, since “If therefore the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
Santiago de Cuba, Mar 26. – Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, highlighted the warm welcome the residents of the beautiful city of Santiago de Cuba gave to Pope Benedict XVI.
Lombardi, who visits Cuba for the first time, stated that “it is truly a beautiful experience”, and voiced his satisfaction for the huge participation of the Cuban people in the mass officiated by the Supreme Pontiff at Antonio Maceo Square.
Over 200,000 people coming from Cuba’s eastern provinces gathered at this historic square this afternoon.
BARACOA, Cuba, AUG. 26, 2011 (Zenit.org).- At the end of a thanksgiving Mass on Aug. 15, the archbishop of Santiago, Cuba, raised high the Cross of Parra, planted by Christopher Columbus on Dec. 1, 1492, and with it he blessed some 2,000 faithful gathered in the square.
Minutes earlier, the crowd broke out in applause on learning that the National Cuban Commission of Monuments declared the Cross of Parra a national monument. This cross is kept in the parish church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Baracoa.
Historian Eusebio Leal made the announcement and described the Eucharist in Baracoa as “a celebration of concord, a beautiful celebration for and in our homeland, in the oldest of all the cities of Cuba.”
Editor’s note: Our communist neighbor to the south raises up the holy cross while certain citizens of “one nation, under God” are doing everything they can to remove every trace of God from the public square. Strange days, indeed!
To the extent that anybody outside the church had ever heard of Diaz, the 46-year-old professor from Collegeville, Minn., is identified with a left-of-center theology that emphasizes human rights and social justice.
That’s disconcerting for conservative Catholics, who see opposition to abortion as a central moral tenet of the church. When Diaz presented his credentials as the new U.S. ambassador last month, Pope Benedict asserted the “need for a clear discernment with regard to issues touching the protection of human dignity and respect for the inalienable right to life from the moment of conception to natural death. … The Church insists on the unbreakable link between an ethics of life and every other aspect of social ethics.”
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