It's too bad Castro's American bootlickers jetted back home (Why is it these fervent admirers of the Communist regime always buy themselves return tickets?) before Easter. They might have run into someone with seeing eyes who could have reminded them of the religious oppression the kindly Castros oversee. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported last year that "(r)eligious belief and practice remain under tight governmental control in Cuba. … Both registered and unregistered religious groups continue to suffer official interference, harassment and repression. Political prisoners and human rights and pro-democracy activists continue to be denied the right to worship." The panel compiled reports of religious leaders "being attacked, beaten or detained for opposing government actions."

The Cuban Communist Party requires religious groups to register to obtain official recognition. They must inform the regime "where they will conduct their activities" and obtain official permission to travel. The government controls the distribution of Bibles. Processions and worship services outside tightly regulated religious buildings are not allowed without permission of the local ruling official of the Communist Party. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is expressly forbidden from proselytizing. Religious schools are banned.

Two years ago, the U.S. international religious freedom panel reported, a Pentecostal preacher and his family were evicted from their home and their church demolished. A month after that, police raided the Santa Teresita Catholic Church in Santiago de Cuba, beat several persons gathered for Mass who participated in a political protest earlier that day, and detained 18 worshipers.

Every Sunday in Havana, a brave group of jailed dissidents' wives walk to a government-approved Mass at an old Catholic cathedral to pray for their husbands' freedom. They are known as the Ladies in White. The group has been harassed and bullied by Castro's henchmen at Easter time for demanding regime change. Their church is named for Saint Rita, the patroness of lost causes. The hopeless sycophants of the Congressional Black Caucus, willfully blind to Castro's systemic brutality, could certainly use the saint's intercession.