OPINION

Vatican (Briefly) Commemorates Cuba's Stalinist Revolution

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Last week the Vatican’s official website marked the 60th anniversary of the atheist, mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring Castro family’s and Che Guevara’s ascension to absolute power thusly:

“Cuba Celebrates 60 Years of the Revolution ….The Cuban Revolution celebrated its 60th anniversary this January 1, 2019. On the island, the historic anniversary was celebrated with a ceremony in Santiago de Cuba, in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia, where Fidel Castro is buried, who died on November 25, 2016. To the main national forces on January 10, 1959, the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled 26 months of guerrilla war led by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro. From Santiago, Fidel Castro proclaimed the beginning of the revolution the victory of the counterculture.”

The congratulatory notice was short-lived, however. After many (apparently) outraged Catholics flashed it around social media the Vatican (apparently) had second thoughts and deleted it. 

The question for many Vatican and Cuba watchers is: “Why? Why the (apparently) chagrined deletion? What’s the big deal?”

I mean, it’s not like the Vatican (and especially this Pope) haven’t duly recorded their grotesque affection for the Castro regime on many, many occasions. 

 In fact, the Stalinist, anti-clerical Castro regime was bestowed with the most recent papal visits of any Latin America nation, equaling the number of papal visits to Brazil, with a population of 200 million, 130 million of them declared Catholics. In contrast, Cuba has a population of 11 million, only a tiny fraction of which are practicing Catholics. Someone’s got some serious “splainin” to do for this Papal fetish of constantly visiting Stalinist Cuba and chumming around with her Stalinist rulers. 

Interestingly, more Popes (three) have recently visited Cuba–a nation with many more crypto-voodooists (Santeros) than Catholics– than have visited Mexico (with 97 million Catholics.) As the late Joan Rivers used to ask: “Can we talk?” (about this glaring and –for many—disgusting incongruity.)

In fact, the Papal motivation for visiting Cuba strikes many Cuba-watchers as no different from Beyonce’s, Conan O’Brien’s, Jack Nicholson’s, Oliver Stone’s, Sean Penn’s,  Danny Glover’s The Kardashian’s etc. , etc. The Popes get plenty of press and get to poke Uncle Sam in the eye. In this respect, they seem no different from all those trendy, loud-mouthed, Castro-hugging, Trump-bashing celebrity popinjays.

And speaking of trendy “Trump-bashing.”

"Pope Francis has criticized the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant families at the Mexican border…Speaking to Reuters, the Pope said he supported recent statements by U.S. Catholic bishops who called the separation of children from their parents 'contrary to our Catholic values' and 'immoral.'"(Reuters, June 20, 2018)

“During their meeting the Pope thanked comrade Fidel Castro for his contributions to world peace in a world saturated with hate and aggression."(Cuba’s Communist party paper, Sept 21st 2015.)

“What?!” Nikita Khrushchev gasped on Oct. 28th 1962, as recalled by his son Sergei. “Is he (Fidel Castro) proposing that we start a nuclear war?! That we launch missiles from Cuba?!...But that is INSANE!..Remove them (our missiles) as soon as possible! Before it’s too late. Before something terrible happens!” commanded the Soviet premier.

Well, so much for the Fake News Media, Fake Academia, and Hollywood/ Camelot's fairy tale of: “JFK standing up to the Russians in Cuba!” In fact, Khrushchev’s panic that Fidel, Raul and Che might get their fingers too close to the buttons is what got the missiles out.

 “Of course I knew the missiles were nuclear- armed,” responded Fidel Castro to Robert McNamara during a meeting in 1992. “That’s precisely why I urged Khrushchev to launch them. And of course Cuba would have been utterly destroyed in the exchange."

But the instance mentioned above is hardly the first time that this Pope, who habitually hails mass-murderer/war-mongers Castro and Che Guevara, has denounced Donald Trump. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian." (Pope Francis after holding a showy mass in Ciudad Juarez for the Mexicans who died trying to cross the U.S. border, Feb. 18, 2016.)

But upon one of his many fond visits to Stalinist Cuba Pope Francis held an even showier mass in the company of Castro and with Che Guevara as the backdrop. Never mind that about 20 times as many Cubans have died trying to escape Castro’s Cuba as died trying to escape East “Tear Down this Wall!” Germany. Never mind any of that. 

In fact, the affection by Argentine Pope Francis for the Stalinist regime co-founded by his compatriot Che Guevara (and for Communism in general) became so flagrant that Yale professor, world-acclaimed Catholic scholar and National Book Award Winner Dr Carlos Eire long ago dubbed him “Papa Che.” 

“It is the communists,” Pope Francis told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica three years ago, “that think like Christians. Christ has spoken of a society where the poor, the weak and the excluded are those who make the decisions.” Castro’s captive (literally!) press was quick to spread this bit of gratifying news.

“I am not Christ or a philanthropist,” wrote Che Guevara in a letter to his mother. “I am all the contrary of a Christ -- In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm. 

Yet, as mentioned: an enormous image of Che Guevara formed the backdrop to Pope Francis’s showy mass in Havana in Sept. 2015.