Dissidents in Cuba say they want the Vatican's attention, help
(March 15, 2012) Cuban dissidents occupied a Roman Catholic Church in Havana on Wednesday
in what a Church spokesman said was part of a broader orchestrated action to get Pope
Benedict to press for change when he visits later this month. Thirteen men and women
who said they were members of obscure political parties went into the Church of Our
Virgin of Charity in central Havana on Tuesday and refused entreaties from Church
officials to leave, according a statement from the archbishop's office in Havana.
It said similar incidents had happened in other churches in the country on Tuesday,
but that elsewhere the dissidents had abandoned the occupied churches. "This has
to do with a strategy prepared and coordinated by groups in various regions of the
country. It is not a chance event, but well thought out and it appears with the purpose
of creating critical situations close to the visit of Pope Benedict XVI," the Church
statement said. The German-born pontiff will come to Cuba March 26-28 after a three-day
visit to Mexico. The Catholic Church, he said, was the only institution that can mediate
for the end of the suffering of the Cuban people. The Church, led in Cuba by Cardinal
Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana, has in the past two years helped negotiate
the release of political prisoners, stepped in to ease government harassment of the
dissident group Ladies in White and pushed President Raul Castro to move ahead with
reforms liberalizing Cuba's Soviet-style economy. The Church statement said its officials
had been in constant contact with the government throughout the incident and that
authorities assured them no action would be taken against the dissidents. Neither
that message nor an offer to drive everyone home convinced the dissidents to end what
the Church called "an illegitimate and irresponsible act. Nobody has the right to
convert the churches into political trenches," the statement added.