UPDATED: Cardinal Ortega, Conscience and Totalitarian Cuba

Tax collectors in Jesus’ time were despised for skimming off the taxes they collected. Yet that did not stop Jesus from calling one to be an apostle. Jesus ate and drank with sinners surely because in them he saw potential saints. Therefore, Cuban Cardinal Ortega stands on solid Christian religious grounds in his outreach to Messrs. Fidel and Raul Castro and even on his visit and scheduled lecture today at the scandal ridden Jesuit Creighton University in Omaha. It all depends on what and why Cardinal Ortega is secretly communicating with the Castro brothers and on the truthfulness and completeness of his message at the lecture.

Perhaps ominously, the Cardinal Newman Society reported that Archbishop Curtiss of Omaha had severed ties with Creighton University’s Center for Marriage and Family because of the “Center director’s public dissent from Catholic teaching … ” The Cardinal Newman society then thanked the archbishop for “… severing ties … and especially for making the action public and thereby warning good Catholics away from serious scandal…” It added:

“Creighton University cannot be ‘taken seriously as a university committed to its Catholic mission when it allows students to be led away from the faith by dissident theologians… ‘Such outrageous activity is opposite to what a Catholic university should expect from genuine Catholic theologians, notwithstanding academic freedom.’”

Most practicing Catholics in the United States are unlikely to be surprised by a Jesuit university’s scandals. Surely not few are aware that in 2011 there are only one third as many Jesuits in the United States as there were in 1965. While there still remain good and holy Jesuits, Catholics know there are also others who undermine the teachings of the Catholic Church.

According to Creighton University’s announcement of the event,

“Cardinal Ortega will offer remarks on the Catholic experience in Cuba where he has served as Archbishop for nearly 30 years….He has been instrumental in securing the prison release of many pro-democracy Cuban journalists and dissidents.”

Creighton will award the cardinal “an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree at …the Spring Commencement on May 14.” Hopefully we will know why he is being awarded this particular degree. Will it be because he helped the regime send almost all of the political prisoners it has thus far admitted to, into exile? But what great principle of law does that enshrine?

One wonders what the Archbishop of Omaha thinks of the Cardinal visiting and lecturing in his archdiocese about Catholics in totalitarian Cuba. Of course, he can not know what the Cardinal is going to say until he says it. So he can only make up his mind after today’s event.

Some have been characterizing the Cardinal as an emissary of the tyranny. Strangely, a while back the Catholic prelate made a series of announcements about the release of prisoners, apparently on the tyranny’s behalf. But this could easily be attributable to an attempt by the totalitarian regime to insinuate a political alliance with the cardinal, force or corner him into to playing along as its ally and thereby manipulate world public opinion. The cardinal could simply be under coercion and unable to say so. I think most people in his shoes would want and should receive such benefit of the doubt.

According to ABC Spain Cardinal Ortega just traveled to Brussels and was received by Pierre de Boissieu, the European Council’s General-Secretariat. ABC added that different sources coincide in reporting that the Cardinal would represent the view that Mr. Raul Castro’s leadership is proof of reform and change towards greater democracy. Capitol Hill Cubans reported that the cardinal also visited Washington D.C. and met with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela.

The regime’s release, through the Cardinal, of several dozen political prisoners (into exile, allowing only a couple to remain in Cuba) was the start of this mayor initiative. The arrest of The American Alan Gross followed in conjunction with an increase in dissident detentions. Now, in a series of events almost coinciding with the Cardinal’s trips, Mr. Raul Castro announced that Cubans would henceforth be permitted to travel abroad as tourists (the first time in over a half century), sell “their” homes (including ones belonging to exiles?) and, most importantly, that Cuban leaders henceforth should have their terms in office limited. What timing! There is better than a fair probability that the Castros will be dead or disabled within the next ten years or so. Mr. Raul Castro will be 80 in June and his brother Mr. Fidel Castro will turn 85 in August. They have been in power since 1959.

The Castros, however, did not announce that they would surrender or leave the country to allow for free unfettered multi-party elections and the creation of a new republican government with divisions of power. They do not seem to have any intention of leaving ever. They will have to be removed once they are totally senile. For they will not leave.

Nevertheless, it appears that Cardinal Ortega is somewhat urgently trying to get Europe and the United States to remove sanctions, which is the position also adopted by the Vatican hierarchy. This is perhaps explained by the Castros’ diminished interference with the Catholic Church. The Church has wished to make itself ever more present amongst Cubans, many of who were effectively separated from the Catholic faith by Castro’s half century of totalitarian control. Critics forget that the Catholic Church’s priority mission for over two thousand years has been, despite the sins of many of its members, the eternal one mandated by Jesus Christ, that is, to bring humanity to the salvation promised by the sole redeemer of humankind.

But as everyone, including the Cardinal, should know by now, tourism is the tyrannical regime’s financial engine. Indeed, it is its only remaining engine given that its ideological one, if it ever truly existed, is in shambles. They have repeatedly proven that they can only defend their raison d’être with mobs. The Castros just don’t trust the votes of the children they have raised in captivity.

Although President Obama recently loosened sanctions after the regime arrested American contractor Alan Gross, it wasn’t enough for the Castros. Presently, any American can travel to Cuba for a merely cultural purpose. But that is not enough for the regime. It wants, as others have argued, plain-money-spending-mind-your-own-business tourists, not just leftist professors, let alone Cuban exiles (or anyone) pursuing to end the tyranny and bring the Castros to justice.

Having sentenced Mr. Gross to fifteen years in a Cuban prison, the Castros have probably calculated they have a good bargaining chip to obtain more. They likely argue to themselves that the freer practice of religion in Cuba is not a right but rather their concession to grant or refuse, give or take away. Thus, they probably believe that they are entitled to compensation for said “concession”, as substantial as a human right is to those supposedly receiving it. That is of course logically impossible, because rights are intrinsic. That is why they are rights. The Castros demand from anyone in Cuba whatever they want. Of course they consider themselves entitled to the Cardinal’s services as a spokesperson and to his help in obtaining concessions from the Church, the United States and Europe. If he were to refuse what might they accuse him of?

Is that what is motivating the Cardinal or is there something else? Does he consider the Castros innocent of grave crimes and legitimate leaders? If so, will he dare address the accusations of The Cuba Archive’s Truth and Memory Project? For there it is reported that there are over eight thousand documented executions and disappearances caused by the Castro regime. Does the Cardinal believe these should be investigated? If so, who would he recommend conduct such an investigation? For there is no separation of powers in Cuba. Who then? The accused?

Or will the Cardinal decide it is more prudent to be silent? If so, why? Grave danger to others or to himself? One could understand this might be the case.

Will the cardinal even mention that Cuban dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto García was reported to have been severely beaten by the political police after being arrested at a protest on May 5? This happened right after the Cardinal left on this trip. Mr. Soto died on four days ago on May 8. Will any Jesuits at the lecture mention and discuss this matter? Will any of Creighton’s Jesuit educated students ask about it?

The Castro regime has denied, as might be expected, that there was a beating and claims that Mr. Soto died of a condition of the pancreas. But according to an extract from a 2010 medical report somehow obtained by the Cuban blogger of Penúltimos Dias blogger, Mr. Soto did not suffer from a pancreatic disease in October of 2010.

What about the Castro regime’s support for abortion. Many U.S. bishops have informed Catholics that they may not vote for candidates who support legal abortion. Yet this Cardinal is apparently intervening for a tyrant who could eliminate abortion in Cuba in an instant, but instead has elected to make it freely available for over five decades, even with decreases in population. Abortion is now instantly available on demand throughout Cuba with the free morning after pill. How does the Cardinal justify intervening on behalf of an abortion facilitator who runs a country? Either the Cardinal is being coerced or like Jesuit Creighton University he is opposing Catholic teaching.

Who will lecture at the Jesuit university today? Messrs. Fidel and Raul Castro or the Cuban Cardinal’s free and Catholic formed conscience? Obviously, the former have done everything in their power to coerce the Catholic Church in Cuba into submission.

May Most Rev. Cardinal Ortega speak the truth, only truth, the whole truth.

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UPDATE – June 14, 2011

Creighton University’s News Center reported the following about their reason for awarding Cardinal Ortega an honorary law degree:

“Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana, Cuba received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree for a life dedicated to promoting religious freedom in Cuba. Cardinal Ortega has served Cuba for nearly 30 years, ordained 22 priests, was instrumental in bringing the Holy Father to the island in 1998, and is largely credited with paving the way to greater religious tolerance in Cuba. Last year Cardinal Ortega dedicated a new seminary, the first church construction in Cuba since 1959. He recently helped families of political prisoners mediate the release of 126 political prisoners held under the government of Raul Castro.”

It is true that religious freedom has improved in Cuba after having been repressed for decades by Jesuit educated Fidel Castro. Cubans can again celebrate Christmas and worship apparently without harassment. But one also observes a certain indifference to religious syncretism in Cuba’s Catholic Church. Processions honoring the Blessed Mother are not necessarily intended only for her by its participants. Yoruba deities are worshiped as catholic saints (santeria) by baptized Catholics. A few Jesuits would of course find nothing wrong with this nor would some Cubans in Miami. Maybe the Cardinal and Miami’s Archbishop Wenski can join hands to work on that next.

I just watched the seven minute clip posted in you tube. My initial impression is that the Cardinal made an earnest effort to respond to critics. While apparently trying to address a foreign country’s Catholic academic audience, he also responds to critics by questioning the objectivity of anyone who does not love the Church.

He then rebuts the idea that distance is necessary for objectivity alluding to a mother who loves her child is thereby enabled to know him/her better than anyone else. His comments are at times florid yet mostly analytical and never dismissive of the high brow audience. But he distances himself from any heretics in said audience by proclaiming his friendship and fidelity to Pope Benedict XVI.

He then identifies himself as a Catholic living in Cuba possibly to draw a distinction between himself and those who do not.

But that is the problem isn’t it? Those that do not are no less Cuban, and have compelling reasons for not living there, but in these 7 minutes the Cardinal does not address that. I’ll listen to the full one hour and twenty three minute lecture, and post more later.