Cuban Dissidents Beaten in Catholic Church
Catholics have long held the use of their church as places of refuge and sanctuary. While it might not seem to have as great a place in Western society in our post-Christian era as it did in previous generations, the Catholic Church still takes the role of sanctuary seriously.
But, it seems the Cuban government, like many Catholic bloggers who complained about the New Sanctuary Movement or the way Belgian Bishops opened up their churches to Arab immigrants, does not like this tradition and shows no respect for it, as can be seen by this recent encounter in the church of Santa Teresita. This Reuters article describes the terrible situation quite well:
Plainclothes police kicked their way into a Roman Catholic church in eastern Cuba, beat and used pepper spray on a group of dissidents, church officials and rights activists said on Wednesday.
Hopefully parishes will remain faithful and fight hard to keep and preserve the right of sanctuary, no matter how difficult this might be in the near future, and no matter how many Catholics ridicule this holy tradition.
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I’ve often thought that the ancient idea of santuary should come back, at least to some extent. I would love to see the Church offering santuary to undocumented workers and challening the state to intervene. I have a feeling though, that the US authorities’ reaction would not differ much from Cuba, at least in some parts of the country.
I, too, long for the time when the Church takes sanctuary seriously again. When it happens, no matter who is condemning the Church when it happens, I cannot but applaud it. Yes, sometimes sanctuary is given to people who we might not like, but is that not a reflection of grace and how it is offered to all of us (and we are all sinners).
Indeed, if this means the Church needs to be countercultural, then I agree with Cardinal Pell who says, “There is no point to a church that is not in some way countercultural, that does not point beyond the next moment, beyond a short-term compassion.” If the Church is only a one-sided, this worldly entity looking to appease the politics of the moment and to help those who are seen as “the good guys” by current political leaders, and not offer her grace and help to all, then it has given up its mission. Christ fed the hungry and saved the souls of sinners; he showed mercy to those condemned to die, and told them to go sin no more for the sake of their soul. Sad how so many “Catholics” just want short-term solutions which get rid of the problems in simple, but destructive manners.
And what exactly are the poor priests supposed to do? Block Castro’s militants? The people? Please, if the people could stop them, they wouldn’t be in the position they are in today. You guys don’t really unerstand what happens in a communist society. the first thing Castro did was throw out priests from Cuba. The people in Cuba have very poor if any Catholic education. When the Pope went in ’98, it revived things a bit, but that didn’t last long. What can they do? I mean, really, all flights of fancy aside, be realistic.