Pope Francis' Subersive Visit to Cuba

 

IBDEditorials.com

The Castro regime showed its worst face on the arrival of Pope Francis in Cuba, hauling out its goons and showing how risky this papal visit is to the Marxist dictatorship.

Some 60 dissidents were arrested and beaten across Cuba by security agents. Their crime? Wanting to attend Mass with the visiting pontiff, who had reached out to them with formal invitations.

They were some of the top names among Cuba's democracy campaigners and included Marta Beatriz Roque, Jorge Luis "Antunez" Garcia Perez and Berta Soler of the human rights group Ladies in White. The Castro regime wasn't subtle, either, attacking and hauling off the bloodied dissidents even as the global television cameras rolled.

Such a crackdown called for a far harder reaction from the Vatican, which had a right to expect basic respect for its choice of Cuban guests for Mass and other events. All the same, there was plenty in Francis' visit that could be described only as subversive, and the regime's violent reaction was proof.

History shows that papal visits to such hideous regimes have resulted in their toppling within a year or so, and not just in Eastern Europe, where Pope John Paul II's 1976 visit is widely credited with injecting life into the Solidarity movement.

Repressive regimes in Paraguay, Argentina and Chile fell after papal visits in the 1980s, says Vatican expert John L. Allen, who edits the Catholic website Crux. We might add Nicaragua, where John Paul lowered a finger at the Sandinista regime and blasted its repression.

Francis didn't have the wherewithal to do that in Cuba. But his condemnation of "ideology" was significant enough. He needn't be more specific by attaching an "ism"; Cuba has only one ideology — communism.

The Pope's homily to the Cubans, on the Gospel story of how the tax collector Matthew converted from being a detested cog in the repressive state apparatus in favor of following Christ, was also subversive. It was an invitation to bureaucrats to reject Cuba's evil system in favor of something more just.

Yes, the pope could have done more, and dictator Raul Castro bird-dogged him everywhere in a bid to use him to reinforce his legitimacy.

But Francis did a lot on his Cuba visit to hit Castro where it hurts. Castro has survived two papal visits, but with this he may not make it three times lucky.