2012-03-15 17:07:19

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.








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