Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

How to understand that the Cuban State, a socialist country, could accept the mediation of the Catholic Church in the freeing of prisoners of conscience, as political prisoners are called in that country? The central figure in this process is Cardinal Jaime Ortega, 73, archbishop of Havana. An able negotiator, he had in the past been a victim of leftist sectarianism which, under the influence of the Soviet Union, stimulated religious persecution.

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2009/10/05/brasilien-auf-uno-index-fur-menschliche-entwicklung-jetzt-platz-75-hinter-argentinien-chile-und-kuba/

http://www.bundestag.de/dasparlament/2010/12/Beilage/006.html

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 While a seminarian in the 1960s Ortega was sent to an “ideological re-education” camp. In spite of this, he never showed resentment nor did he ally himself with those who turned their backs on the Revolution. The leftist period of the Cuban Revolution – publicly rejected by Fidel – froze Church-State relations. Between 1964 and 1981 bishops and authorities did not speak to one another. When I first met Fidel in 1980 he proposed that I mediate the resumption of dialogue. In the following year I participated in the Episcopal conference in Santiago de Cuba where I offered the proposal. The bishops received it as a positive sign. A short time later Fidel held an audience with them. In 1985 the Cuban leader consented to a long interview with me on the religious question published under the title “Fidel and Religion”. The book caused an impact on the population, whose religiosity possesses a strong syncretic root, a mixture between Catholicism and African traditions. This was the first time a communist leader in power touched on the subject of faith in a respectful way, even admitting that his religious education had improved his character. In a country of 11 million inhabitants, 1.3 million copies of the book have been published so far. According to a Cuban bishop, the book “removed fear from Christians and prejudice from communists”. In 1986 the Church promoted the Cuban Ecclesial Encounter, a local version of a mini council for outlining new pastoral directives.The understanding between Church and State was suddenly interrupted by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Cardinal Law from Boston, when preaching a retreat to the bishops, insisted that the domino effect of the fall of socialism would not spare Cuba and that the bishops, like the Polish episcopate, should take on the role of new Moses’, capable of leading the people to democracy… In January 1990 Fidel came to Brazil for President Collor’s inauguration. I met him in Brasilia. I insisted that the dialogue should continue and, soon afterwards, I arrived in Havana to interview Jaime Ortega. It was the first and only time I found him pessimistic. He did not believe that the government had good intentions. Perhaps he was expecting the Revolution to end shortly.Cuba was not hit by the neo liberal hurricane which devastated Eastern Europe and a series of circumstances favoured the visit of Pope John Paul II to the country in 1998. Fidel invited me and a group of theologians including Leonardo Boff, to advise him during the Papal visit. Our role was to “decipher” ecclesiastical language and protocol.The success of the visit – the Pope did not condemn the Cuban regime, as Bush had wanted, and praised its social conquests – and the empathy which was created between Fidel and Woityla, re-opened the channels for dialogue. However, Fidel, because of ill health, gave up the command of the government in 2006 and Raul Castro took over.I intensified my visits to Havana in order to deepen the religious question with Raúl and Caridad Diego, the head of the Office for Religious Matters (a kind of Ministry of Faith). It was decided to commemorate, in March 2010, the 25 years since the launching of “Fidel and Religion”. All the practising religious denominations in the country were invited. Raúl was present and lamented that no Catholic bishop attended the event.That evening we dined together. We talked of the Catholic Church’s pastoral action with the prisoners and of how the Revolution could only gain with the liberation of prisoners of conscience who are not accused of bloodshed or of terrorist actions.   On May 10 Raúl Castro met with Cardinal Jaime Ortega for the first time. The conversation lasted five hours. The Archbishop asked that the prisoners be transferred to places closer to their families and showed the Church’s willingness to collaborate towards giving them an amnesty. The government considered that it was worth while betting on the cardinal’s proposal thus avoiding extremist gestures of great international repercussion such as hunger strikes taken to the last consequences.Jaime Ortega is not at all progressive, nor is he anti communist. His role as pastor is to create conditions which favour the evangelization of the Cuban population. He knows that humanitarian initiatives such as the freedom of prisoners not only reinforce the Church’s prestige, but, above all, are witness to a deep fidelity to the Gospel and at the same time are proof of the Revolution’s tolerance.What both the Church and the State most hope for now is that Obama will free the five Cuban prisoners who since 1998, in the USA, have been accused of espionage. This is the condition for the return to positive dialogue between Washington and Havana, taking into account the suspension of the blockade imposed by the USA on Cuba.

Violence against women does not take place merely in interpersonal relations. It is wide spread by the merchandising culture in which we live. One need only see the variety of television advertisements which make women the pornographic bait for consumerism.

Stop before a magazine stand and check the diversity of “butcher shop” photography! Look at the female roles in comedy programmes. Now, if woman is reduced to her buttocks and physical attributes, treated as a “chick” or a “broad”, shown as a mere object for male pleasure, how can we expect her to be respected?

In the last few years our schools have introduced sex education to the curriculum. It is generally restricted to notions of bodily hygiene in order to avoid sexually transmittable diseases. It does not deal with affection, love, alterity between the partners, of family as a life project or of the unquestionable dignity of the other which includes homosexuals.

There still are families where parents either maintain the taboo of not talking about sex and affection with their children or think it best to go to the other extreme, “generalised freedom”, with no boundaries, which encourages the precocious eroticization of children and promiscuity amongst adolescents, made worse by cases of unexpected and undesired pregnancy.

Where are the women’s’ movements? Where is their indignation before the various forms of violence against them?

Sports clubs should, as businesses and religious denominations do, demand that their athletes have a code of ethics. Then, perhaps, sudden fame and too much money will not turn the heads of idols with feet of clay…

„Barbaritycracy“: http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2010/09/05/brasiliens-zeitungen-eine-fundgrube-fur-medieninteressierte-kommunikations-und-kulturenforscher/

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2010/04/23/weiterer-brasilianischer-systemkritiker-ermordet-mit-19-schussen-jose-maria-filho-prasident-der-vereinigung-der-enteigneten-landlosen-landarbeiter-bekannt-wegen-protesten-gegen-agrobusiness-und/