March 29, 2006

Cuba: The Atheist State

It never ceases to amaze me how some religious leaders from the US and around the world travel to Cuba and collude with fidel castro, the very same man who once declared Cuba to be an atheist state. The very same man who rounded up priests and clerics and when not executing them expelled them from the island. The very same man who made Christmas illegal. The very same man who to this day still rounds up, harrasses and oppresses pastors, reverends, priests and other men and women of faith.

Last month I wrote about Frank Griswold of the Episcopalian Church, there's the National Council of Churches, Vatican officials ignore Cuba's human rights record and instead chastise the US for Guantanamo. The list is endless and frustrating.

But every once in a while, a true Christian organization, concerned more about Christianity than politics, goes on record and takes a stand against the blatant violations to freedom of religion and human rights by fidel castro's government:

From The Institute on Religion and Democracy:

Waiting for the Solidarity Embrace

Faith McDonnell

Within the mud-wall cells (celdas tapiadas) of Cuba’s infamous Combinado del Este Prison in East Havana, the prison guards work overtime to demoralize Christians and other political prisoners. Dissidents are presented with every new statement of support by a U.S. church leader for Castro’s revolution in an attempt to convince them to abandon their faith.

IRD first learned of this favorite technique of the Cuban Communist indoctrinators over two decades ago. The lauded Cuban poet and patriot Armando Valladares experienced this mockery and abuse first-hand during his twenty years in Castro’s prisons. In his acceptance speech upon receiving IRD’s 1983 Religious Freedom Award, Valladares said that the award’s recognition of the suffering of Cuban Christians for the sake of religious freedom and human rights countered the betrayal they felt from other U.S. mainline church leaders.

“Every time that a pamphlet was published in the United States, every time a clergyman would write an article in support of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship, a translation would reach us and that was worse for the Christian political prisoners than the beatings or the hunger,” Valladares revealed.

“While we waited for the solidarity embrace from our brothers in Christ, incomprehensively to us, those who were embraced were our tormentors.” Valladares declared that Christians in Cuba’s prisons were suffering not only the pain of torture and isolation, but the conviction that they had been deserted by their brothers in faith.

Fast forward twenty-three years. The recent trip to Cuba of Frank Griswold, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church provides the latest ammunition for shooting down the morale of Cuba’s brave dissidents. Griswold led a cartel of Episcopal Church Center staff members on an official visit, hosted by the Episcopal Church of Cuba, in late February 2006. During his six days in Havana, Griswold denounced U.S. policy towards Cuba as “inhuman,” but had no equal words of condemnation for Castro’s brutal regime. The Christians and other political prisoners, who languish in the Combinado and the rest of the 300 prisons that have spread like sores across the island since the revolution, went unnoticed.

Despite the NCC's and Griswolds of this world, I know God has not forgotten the people of Cuba. He has given us people like Faith McDonnell and organizations like the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and their exposing of Cuba's reality, that will help free the Cuban spirit from fidel castro's imposed purgatory.

Please take a moment to read the whole article here. There is also another excellent article from the Institute of Religion and Democracy on Abdul Rahman here.

Posted by Val Prieto at March 29, 2006 07:14 AM



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Comments

I don't think Dante imagined the level of hell where these folks will go.

Posted by: George L. Moneo [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 29, 2006 08:35 AM

Maybe the time has come for all true Christians and others of good will to band together and abandon those who have abandoned us! Start by withholding your monetary and other support from these crypto-Pharisee "denominations." And denounce their hypocrisy at every opportunity - as you are doing here at Babalu.

Posted by: Alberto-Q [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 29, 2006 08:39 AM

Thank you Val for this post. The IRD is a grand institution - one doesn't have to be religious to appriciate what they do and how anti communist they are - a rare thing in the Christian religious world today where Left wing thought has creeped in and has perverted the teachings of Christ - even in the Catholic Church. Before Elian I had never heard of the National Council of Churches, after everything was said and done - and how the NCC, along with the Presbetarian, Methodist, and African American churches with the blessing of the Clinton admin actually worked hard for Fidel Castro's interests I vowed that to my dying day I would do what was ever possible, by law and thru the Internet to expose the NCC and to form a movement to disband it and to hold its leaders (past and present) accountable for ignoring the crimes against humanity especially in Cuba and for supporting some of the most murderous tyrants the world has seen. We also all need to remember that the National and World Council of Churches was not created to evolve Christianity but to actually use Christianity to bring about socialism then communism. You can all read the gory details exposed here:
http://www.geocities.com/nccwatch/articles/apostasy.htm
Thanks!

Posted by: mandingo [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 29, 2006 09:52 AM

This is not surprising in the least.

Let's rewind: It was the RELIGIOUS establishment that plotted to put Christ to death, and succeeded. In one of the parables of the sower, Jesus told how there are "tares among the wheat" just like there are "wolves in sheeps' clothing." Just because a person is a "religious leader" doesn't mean they have any truth. Or brains. Or ethics. Or decency.

Hay mucha yerba mala. You can always find these detestable phonies in bed with dictators, chumming it up with the bloody Fuhrers of this world thus giving them legitimacy.

They need to be exposed - continually.

Posted by: Gigi [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 29, 2006 10:28 AM

The NCC has long been considered a front for leftist, including communist, organizations.

Follow this link and you can read a html or pdf book on the organization.
http://www.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/39be_47e.htm

According to it, more than 100 NCC members have been connected by the government to communist organizations.

I began withholding my money from the Episcopal Church in the 1960s when I learned that the money raised by children during Lent was being sent to Cuba and Poland and was used to buy military equipment such as trucks.

Posted by: Paxety [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 29, 2006 11:15 AM

A post at Spanglish a lo Cubano the other day remined me that liberal Jewish groups are just as bad. Myles Kantor writing about groups traveling to Cuba in his "Passover in Cuba" article says it much better than I:

"And do Jewish organizations in America like the B'nai B'rith and American ORT demand the emancipation of their Cuban brethren? Do they demand an end to the systematic violation of Cuban Jews human rights?
On the contrary, they pour copious dollars into the regime through "humanitarian missions" where they stay at luxurious hotels from which ordinary Cubans are excluded. They taste rum and cigars at the Hotel Nacional and feature a photograph of the fatigues-clad pharaoh." As Mr. Kantor says, there is yiddish word for this, shandeh. (disgrace)

Posted by: Ziva [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 29, 2006 03:47 PM

I speak from experience when I say that there are always dissappointments, shortcommings, indeed corruption in all christian organizations. This is the failing of human nature, and the reason we all need Christ. If I set out to find the perfect church, the minute I step inside, it becomes imperfect. We are disillusioned by our fellow humans and, if we're truly honest, ourselves. But I have NEVER been dissapointed or disillusioned by Jesus Christ. That said, I also believe that naive, unsuspecting, nonassertive, even fearful church leaders allow evil forces a foothold within the church. This is the case illustrated by the decline of mainline denominations which show a disconnect between official stands and the feelings of most people in the pews. I don't know much about The Institute on Religion and Democracy, but it appears to be an attempt to "take back" the mainline denominations away from liberal theology and social stands to a more biblical, conservative posture in line with the true heritage of those denominations. For this I applaud them, and all the more so because as they do, they will reflect a more truthful view of the situation in Cuba and other places where human rights are routinely violated. It was encouraging to read Faith McDonnell's article and how unequivocal it is in opposing the "namby pamby" brand of christianity displayed by Bishop Griswold. Jesus was bold and in-your-face if you really study the gospels. He would have dealt very differently with castro if he had him in a room for a couple of hours.

Posted by: Patricio Texidor [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 29, 2006 05:18 PM

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