If there are no political prisoners in FrancisCuba, then how can there be Ladies in White?

If there are no political prisoners in FrancisCuba, then how can there be Ladies in White?

At Breitbart Francis Martel reports:

A Catholic church in the central Cuban city of Cienfuegos has banned female relatives of political prisoners from attending mass unless they no longer wear white, a color associated with political imprisonment in the nation. The slight to families of the abused follows the bewildering remark from Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega that Cuba no longer has prisoners of conscience.

Eight members of the Ladies in White activist group have attended Sunday Catholic Mass wearing white for years, sitting in the pews in silence unless participating in the Mass. No reports have surfaced of the women themselves–mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters of prisoners of conscience–disturbing the Mass. Nonetheless, a priest in Cienfuegos expelled them from his service, ordering them never to wear white again in his church if they wish to attend services.

The priest, identified as “Father Tarciso,” told Diario de Cuba that the women were “disrespectful,” stating, “I had told them that the way things are could not continue to be. … I cannot allow our community to be further fractured,” he argued. He accused them of taking photographs inside the church, which the ladies deny. Miladis Espino Díaz, a representative of the Ladies in White, noted that they were expelled from the church and, upon walking out, could hear the priest apologize to those in attendance for not having done it sooner.

“We do not only go to church because we are Ladies in White,” Espino Díaz told the newspaper, “but because we believe in God. We sing, we pray, we participate, we do nothing wrong.”

Following their removal from the church, the women testified to being the victim of a number of offensive acts, including a man “exposing himself and urinating in front of them,” “obscene gestures using fingers,” and “being called prostitutes.”

Offenses to the Ladies in White are common as they attempt to attend Mass; in a particularly gruesome instance last year, one woman was tarred for wearing white to the service.

Two male supporters of the group, Emilio García Moreira and Alexander Veliz García, began a hunger strike Thursday to support the return of the women to Mass.

Catholic religion is heavily regulated in communist Cuba, where it is technically a counterrevolutionary activity but has managed to persist, particularly given overtures by Pope Francis towards the Castro dictatorship. “If he keeps talking like this, I’ll return to the Church,” Raúl Castro said of the Pope this year following his support of major U.S. concessions to the Castro regime. Pope Francis was a direct mediator between President Obama and Raúl Castro before the American head of state chose to strip Cuba of its State Sponsor of Terrorism status–despite no evidence in a change of support to either the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or Hezbollah–in exchange for nothing from Cuba.

Are the new enviro-apocalyptic totalitarian societies we’re being forced into just high-school popularity contests on steroids?  You’re either in desperately in or your nowhere?  What does a local homily sound like in Cardinal Ortega’s Cuba?  If he can’t get away with the ridiculous claim that there are no political prisoners, maybe he can make their wives and mothers disappear!

Is this what faithful Catholics have to look forward to in the new FrancisChurch –  government-loving flunkies posing as priests, calling true Christian witnesses ‘divisive,’ and kicking them out of Mass?  That would never happen in the free world, no!  The FrancisVatican officials are always respectful and welcoming of honest ideas.  Sometimes they’re even funny?  They never side with the enemy.

The Mass-going Ladies in White are nothing like prostitutes.  How twisted must a Catholic get before he can insult and attack these brave women?

I’m not looking forward to the new Global Warming Church.  I had to pray for all the rivers and various species at Mass today.  Now that there are no Catholics there to ‘fracture the community,’ gay marriage is going to catch on like wildfire in the Cuban pews.

 

Big deals and a bright Cuban Francisfuture

Big deals and a bright Cuban Francisfuture

Local New York CBS reports:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to return to New York from Cuba on Tuesday with two major business deals in hand.

As CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, although the trade mission was supposed to be about developing future business, the group actually came back to the states with two deals made, including one where an upstate medical facility is going to be able to run clinical trials of a lung cancer vaccine developed by Cubans.

That’s what’s been going on in Cuba all these years.  They developed a vaccine for lung cancer!  Thank you Pope Francis for this new arrangement.  Obama couldn’t have done it without you.  Can I be in the clinical trial?

Cuomo, who became the first U.S. governor to visit Cuba in decades, said he also laid the groundwork for more New York-based businesses to get a foot in the door on the island nation.

Oh, no news yet on any U.S. businesses starting up in Cuba though.

“We believe this is going to be a dramatic change that is going to be to the benefit of the people of Cuba and also to the people of the United States,” Cuomo said.

While the embargo would have to be lifted by Congress, President Barack Obama can grant licenses to businesses to trade with Cuba.

So the embargo is still in effect except when Obama says it isn’t.  There are so many laws like that now!

The governor was accompanied by other New York lawmakers and executives from JetBlue, MasterCard, Pfizer, Chobani and other companies.

Cuomo took a tour of a new nearly $10 million deep water Port of Mariel, which could be just the ticket for New York businesses to get their goods to Cuba and the rest of Latin America.

Cuomo is no stranger to big construction projects, but still, he was suitably impressed with the Cuban government’s efforts to build a massive commercial port and duty free zone west of Havana that could revolutionize the way Cuba does business, Kramer reported.

“We have had a friendship that went on for decades. It is about rekindling that friendship,” Cuomo said.

What is it with New York Italians, politicians, unions, ports, big construction projects, places like Cuba, and Catholic bishops?

Cuomo also met with Cuban Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino while in Havana.

The governor expressed admiration for the cardinal’s efforts in expanding the church’s reach in the Communist-ruled country.

“We’re very proud of what his eminence has done,” Cuomo said. “We’re very proud of what the Catholic church has done.”

Isn’t that nice?  Andrew Cuomo is very proud of our Church.  I guess we can all be proud of that then.

When asked if his decision to move so quickly to help end the embargo had anything to do with his late father Mario, Cuomo said “My father said isolation is not going to work. Isolation is just going to cause bitterness and it’s going to accomplish nothing.”

Back in New York, Republicans called the governor’s trade mission a political stunt.

One lawmaker said it was offensive to Cuban-Americans whose families have been victims of the Castros’ rule.

Who was that one lawmaker?  What a silly thing to say.  Castro is nice now.  It was all America’s bitter isolation as they sinned against dialogue, encounter, accompaniment, heartfelt closeness, and that Catholicism whose flag Communism stole.