At a 40 minute personal meeting between Cuban president Raul Castro and Pope Benedict, the Holy Father asked for Cuba to recognise Good Friday as a holiday. Noting that John Paul II asked a similar request of Fidel Castro about Christmas and it was restored as a national holiday, Vatican Spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ said, Read more
Pope Benedict has announced that the collection money from Holy Thursday evening Mass in the basilica of St John Lateran will be used for humanitarian aid in support of Syrian refugees. The Maronite Archbishop of Damascus Samir Nassar, labelled the Pope’s action is “a very generous gesture”. “It is a gesture of closeness and solidarity that has Read more
As Cuba prepared to receive Pope Benedict XVI on March 26, an increasing number of voices both on the island and abroad are complaining that the local church authorities are ignoring dissident groups and showing favoritism to a government that oppresses its own people. They also fear that the pontiff’s visit could be exploited for the same purposes.
In recent days, Lech Walesa, the former leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement that toppled the communist regime in 1989, as well as Cuban-American congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, have joined Cuban dissident groups to ask the pope to speak out against human rights abuses by the island’s communist government during his upcoming trip.
The Cuban authorities have added fuel to the fire during the past week by temporarily arresting human rights protesters and other dissidents, including seventy members of the Ladies in White, which consists of the wives and female relatives of political prisoners. Thus far, requests by the Ladies in White to meet with Pope Benedict during his trip have not been answered.
Seeking to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the pope’s visit, a group calling itself the Republican Party of Cuba occupied several churches in the dioceses of Havana and Holguin on March 13. The group’s spokesman says that they were trying to “call the attention of the pope” to their cause, which they characterize as “liberty, democracy, and respect for human rights.”
Although the dioceses of Havana and Holguin deny that they asked for police intervention, the Havana protesters were ejected by government authorities by force two days later, after the archdiocese informed the police of the situation. The Republican party of Cuba complains that its members were handled roughly, and that the Bishop of Holguin behaved towards them in an insulting manner when asking them to leave, an order that was peacefully obeyed.
The Archdiocese of Havana accuses the dissidents themselves of attempting to use the pope’s visit for political purposes, claiming their actions are based “on a strategy prepared and coordinated by groups in various regions of the country.”
“It is not a chance event, but rather a planned one, apparently with the purpose of creating critical situations as the Pope’s visit approaches,” the archdiocese stated in a press release published by Granma, an organ of the government.
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An estimated 300,000 gathered to hear Pope Benedict condemn drug trafficking and corruption in the World’s second-largest Catholic country – Mexico. The pope also asked people to put aside violence and revenge in the country where a murderous war between cartels has led to tens of thousands of deaths. With roads closed, pilgrims walked for Read more
Cuba’s foreign minister said his government is looking forward to welcoming Pope Benedict XVI and exchanging points of view with him, even after the pope used his in-flight news conference to criticize Marxist ideology.
Bruno Rodriguez, the foreign minister of Cuba’s communist government, was asked about the pope’s remarks March 23 during the opening of the Havana press center for the papal visit.
“We are looking forward to an exchange of ideas” during the pope’s visit March 26-28, he said.
Read the article...The group of cyberactivists known as Anonymous blocked access to two websites linked to the upcoming visit to Mexico by Pope Benedict XVI.
The website of the Achdiocese of Mexico was down for a couple of hours Tuesday due to the operation that was identified online as #opFariseo, and something similar happened to the site of the Institute of Communications and Philosophy (Comfil).
“Hacked system. The POPE is not welcome, out out!!!!!” said the text that was posted on the Comfil website, usually devoted to teaching philosophy.
In its profile on the social network Facebook, Anonymous Hispano said the Comfil site was “hacked for supporting Benedict XVI.”
Read the article...Pope Benedict XVI has said the Catholic Church shares the pain of the Coptic Orthodox Church over the death of its patriarch, Pope Shenouda III.
Benedict sent a message of condolences Sunday following Shenouda’s death Saturday at age 88.
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MEXICO CITY – Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Latin America takes him to the region’s most Catholic country…and its least. In Catholic Mexico, towns throw parties for their patron saints, pilgrims prostrate themselves at shrines and many people still cross themselves every time they pass a church. In Cuba, abortions are legal and many adults have been divorced Read more
Ahead of Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba next week, Lech Walesa, the former Polish President has written to Benedict urging him to take up the defense of Cubans demanding freedom. “I beg Your Holiness to intercede for those who are in prison because of their convictions,” wrote Walesa, a former dissident who headed the Solidarity Read more