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Cuban
Priests The following analysis was prepared by a group of Cuban Priests in mid-1999. The priests are from the four Dioceses on the eastern end of the island. It is highly critical of the Cuban Government and, at times, the Catholic hierarchy. Introduction The entire world expected something in the days leading up to the Pope’s visit to Cuba. The Church wanted more space to carry out its mission; prisoners wanted freedom; homemakers wanted more food; and the people wanted their problems to be solved. There was also the awareness that these enormous expectations were not going to be met because of the papal visit. A year and a half after the historic papal visit to Cuba we need to ask where are we and what did we achieve from the Pope’s visit to our country? We want to respond to these questions with the following reflection. Papal suggestions and criticisms All the expectations, both objective and fanciful, were embodied by a phrase that many Cubans believe summed up the Pope’s visit: "Cuba needs to open itself to the world and the world needs to open itself to Cuba". The phrase had a certainty to it, because it referred to the double blockade suffered by Cuba. There is the internal blockade, imposed by the communist system, and the external blockade, led by the North American economic embargo of the island. For those sectors that only believe in the importance of the first blockade, Cuba’s problems will be solved with internal changes, with the evolution, transformation or dissolution of the current political system. For those who blame everything on the external blockade, lifting the embargo (a decision that depends on a foreign government) will solve the nation’s difficult situation. An objective analysis, however, shows that our problems are such that they involve decisions that need to be made internally and externally, personally and collectively and both within and outside Cuba. The Pope saw this and summarized it with the call for a double openness of Cuba to the world and the world to Cuba. Another main idea expressed by the Pope was that Cubans need to be protagonists of our own history. This demand for protagonism carries a double criticism: The paternalism that makes us expect all solutions to come "from above" and the immobility that leads us to expect solutions "from outside", to cross our arms and let someone else "pull the coals from the fire". The solution must come from within, from our people and from our hearts, or it will not be a solution. Many years ago, after the first confrontations between the Church and the young socialist government, Bishop Perez Serantes said "Rome or Moscow", denying that the future of Cuba was between Washington and Moscow. Forty years later, the Pope told us that the future is in our hands and it depends on us. We need to ask what has stopped or what stops us from taking the reins of our lives and our history into our hands? To answer this question we need briefly to analyze the phenomenon of totalitarianism in which we have been immersed in one way or another over the past 40 years. The situation, which has characterized the development of the last 40 years of socio-economic and cultural revolution in Cuba, is summarized by one name: Totalitarianism. Cuban communists did not invent totalitarianism. They simply adopted the Marxist-Leninist version and "benefited" from its long experience. When it had to confront the United States, the neighbouring superpower in the Cold War, the only door open to the Cuban Government was a strategic alliance with the bloc opposed to the Americans, the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union. In this way, the existence and survival of the Cuban project was undeniably tied to the so-called "real socialism" and its methods for acting. Totalitarianism adopts and permanently applies reactions typical of war, "the habit of violence, the simplicity of extreme passions, individual and collective submission" as a way of achieving its maximum expression of solidarity through fear, induced egalitarianism, unity without fissures and the need for actions directed and controlled by the leader. The totalitarian society exhibits a strange mix of fraternity and ferociousness. If the context from which totalitarianism rises is war and violence, then its objective is the total destruction and reconstruction of a mass society through ideology and mechanisms for organization and control that use the most modern applications of science and technology. Ideology, however, is not a simple way of thinking or a philosophical structure, but an instrument for action that mobilizes historic forces toward a goal: Establishing absolute political power in the hands of one party in which "the people, united, will never be defeated". We can characterize the system based on the following elements: - Creation of a new society and a new man that mobilizes the action of all people - Action is directed by one party that is hierarchically structured and headed by an absolute dictator - A system of physical and psychological terror exercised and supervised by the party through a sophisticated system of security and vigilance that uses modern control methods and constant research on the opinions and feelings of the people - Control of information through mass media allows for the creation of a "virtual reality" that has little or nothing to do with reality and makes people think that they live in the best of worlds - Absolute control of weapons and the army, as well as a centrally planned economy, allows leaders maximum control over the lives of the people. We are faced with an absolute control over the bodies and spirits of the people. It is possible that no monarch or leader has had such control over a people or has been able to achieve such a level of planning over the lives of people and society. Radio and television gives them an indirect and sophisticated control that "programmes" awareness from within without the people knowing they are being programmed. All of this makes the totalitarian system diabolically efficient for controlling people. The syndrome of learned defencelessness or "nothing can be tone" It is necessary to analyze the consequences prolonged exposure to the policies of a totalitarian government has on human beings. We call it the "syndrome of learned defencelessness" or "induced hopelessness." As a starting point, we have the experiments carried out by Martin Seligman, a North American psychologist. Dr Seligman researched the behaviour of two groups of dogs. One group was subjected to a completely distressful situation. The animals, regardless of what they did, received electrical shocks and could not escape from their cages. The other group, which received the same treatment, could escape from the torture centre by learning how to move a few mechanisms. The dogs learned what to do and got out. When the dogs were all brought together under similar conditions, which allowed for all of them to escape, the animals from the first group were resigned to their condition and did not even try to escape even though the possibility existed. The dogs from the second group found the new door to escape their torture. Dr Seligman’s research has been applied to human psychology and psycho-sociology. The results were important when applied to the totalitarian reality. Totalitarianism is presented as a situation without hope and becomes a paradigm of defencelessness. The propaganda spread by the government tries to convince us that change is impossible, that there is no possible way out of this situation. A phrase from journalist Soledad Cruz expresses this sentiment: "No one can topple it, but no one can fix it". This idea reinforces the sayings of the old proverbs, such as "the evil we know is better than the good we don’t know". The perfect state of defencelessness is that which leads us to believe change is impossible. A state of defencelessness only functions if the people accept the ideas, experiences and attitudes that lead to it. As we saw with the animals subjected to a prolonged period of defencelessness, even if the conditions change they are still unable to respond. Defencelessness discourages imagination and creativity. The syndrome of learned defencelessness is a clear mechanism to explain the apathy of the people in a totalitarian or post-totalitarian regime. The system itself has operated like a giant machine generating defencelessness. Control over the different aspects of people’s lives (political, administrative, economic, sociocultural), information and the centres for educating people in media, and mechanisms for defence and repression are aimed at showing the population that nothing escapes the omnipresent State. All of it is geared toward imposing defencelessness. Live the truth: A way out of defencelessness "The truth will set you free", (Jn 8:32) "They married us to lies and they forced us to live with them, which is why we think the world is ending when we hear the truth. It would be better for the world to end than to live a lie" (José Martí). What a totalitarian system fears the most is the seed of truth. The system cannot stand a critical spirit that questions the false truths spoken from the absolute throne of power. The totalitarian system functions like an immense generator of virtual reality that substitutes the real world. It only operates, however, when people decide to live in it or passively accept it. Those people who decide to live the truth and refuse to collaborate with the conventional elements that maintain the system become an example to others and a danger to the system itself. Vaclav Havel has analyzed this reality using the example of a vendor who hangs a sign on his vegetable cart. This sign reads, "true democracy only exists in socialism", but neither the vendor nor his customers believe this and most people do not even read what the sign says. It does not express what the vendor thinks, but is meant to send a sign of loyalty to the government. The true message is: "I, Juan, the grocer, do not want problems so I obey by hanging up my sign. The only thing I ask is to be left in peace". If we were to translate Juan’s sign into real terms, it would read "I am afraid and that is why I obey". The vendor would reject this; he would be embarrassed publicly to hang up a sign that so explicitly expressed his level of degradation. That is how this ideology operates, hiding the truth with phrases that only humble the people before power. The distance between words and life reveals the distance that separates the abject lie of a false life and an honest life lived in truth. Unmasking the lie is the primary mission of people who want to be faithful to themselves and who want to live in truth. On the contrary, people who share the lie or pretend that they believe it support the regime and help prolong it. This is what "accepting the rules of the game" means. People do not decide life, but life, ritualized through ideology, receives their loyalty and imposes a destiny on them. People sign their own death warrant and that of other people when they accept this ideology. They become accomplices in enslaving the brothers and sisters. Only through an act of liberty and rebellion can they recover their repressed identity and dignity. When people decide "to live the truth" and show that it is possible, they embarrass those who continue to live the lie and become the principal threat to the omnipresent power. The major confirmation of this was seen in the collapse of the post-totalitarian communist world in 1989. This power structure, which was believed to be monolithic, collapsed like a house of cards in only a few days without anyone defending "the old regime". This awareness that we are talking about is not political but moral. The totalitarian system classifies any move toward "living the truth" as a political action. Any actions taken by people to recover their responsibility and exercise the right to make a decision is seen as a direct threat to the system, provoking a violent response from the authorities. Fear is the system’s most solid support mechanism. This is key for people to accept their virtual reality. As can easily be seen, fear discourages people from assuming their own responsibility. The increase in the number of police officers helps to discourage the population from expressing their thoughts and feelings. Then there is the economy. You do not have to be an economist to figure out that more and more people are just trying to survive. There is no attempt at long-term development with a vision of the future for the country. People and the State are living day to day. The country’s infrastructure is being destroyed and there are no repair jobs that can stop it. Liberalizing measures that would allow recuperation in agricultural and industry are not being adopted because the government fears it will lose economic control and then political control. This is why the government has moved one step ahead and then backpedaled with measures allowing private initiatives in agriculture and trade. A similar thing is happening in the areas that were once held up as indisputable triumphs of the revolution — education and health care. In a recent article, Ignacio Sotelo wrote that everyone in Cuba knows how to read and that there were more and more "functional literates", because there is nothing to read or books are too expensive. The same thing is true with health care. The physical and psychological deterioration of the people has reached such extremes that progress based on statistical arguments can no longer be used. The totalitarian regime in Cuba became a post-totalitarian government during the 1970s. A totalitarian regime is based on absolute control of the situation and mobilizing the masses to drum up active support. The post-totalitarian system tries to maintain control not through mobilizing but paralyzing the people and avoiding the growth of civil society. The Church at the crossroads of present and future When the communist experience began in the country 40 years ago, the Church raised its voice and confronted this new reality. Totalitarianism in Cuba began with the heroic aura of fighting for liberty and justice. The progressive implantation of communism on the revolution accelerated the process of consolidating absolute power. The revolutionary power invested with a redemptive authority swept away all the institutions of the past, wiping away the good as well as the bad. The consequence was a "year zero", an absolute power that controlled all spheres of life. The Church’s condemnation of a communist presence in the revolution and its increasingly radical actions led to the dismantling of the Church, its methods and its actions. The short and intense period of confrontation was accompanied by a "policy" of voluntary and involuntary ejection from the country. There were exceptions among the laity, religious men and women and priests, but those who remained were barely allowed to survive by the government. When the situation got particularly difficult at different times over the past 40 years, caused by "the internal contradictions of the system", the government’s solution was to open the doors and let the "disaffected" leave. The Church saw its membership shrink and its pastoral work compromised during each of these exoduses. The Church has had to improvise its plans because our people left. The Church called on the faithful to remain, to commit themselves to the country and its people, but there were strong arguments against this, including reuniting with family, a tranquil life, the chance of freedom, economic prosperity. The exodus and the existence of a community of more than two million Cubans living permanently outside the country is a key problem in the nation’s life and weighs heavily on the present and future of Cuba. This fact involves too many people for it not to be taken into account. As we know, in 1980 the Church began a process of internal renovation with the Ecclesial Reflection. This process, which culminated with the National Cuban Encounter, was characterized by the search for our identity and historic vocation in the light of the Gospel and service to our people. The reflection process included dialogue as a fundamental element of our existence and work as a Church. This process coincided with the beginning of changes in the USSR and Eastern Europe (perestroika and glasnost). The Church proposed dialogue as the most effective way of dealing with the country’s problems. As part of the internal renovation the Church opened a new pastoral action that sprang from its renewed evangelizing conviction, which coincided with the Mission of the Cross and the celebration of 500 years of the faith in Latin America. The phase is ending with the celebration of Jubilee and had as its high point Pope John Paul II’s visit in January 1998. The proposal to the people, of walking in faith through mission, coincided with the crisis of world communism, the break up of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the Eastern Bloc, which had a serious repercussion on Cuba, its people and government. All of the People of God, through the final document of the national encounter and the Bishops, as pastors of the Church, proposed a "National Dialogue" directly to the government as a way of addressing the crisis caused by the collapse of Marxism. The dialogue, which would include Cubans in exile, would look for far-reaching and effective solutions to mobilize the nation’s moral and material forces. It was an effort to give both sides a vote of confidence in steering the boat toward the future. Cuban communists, faced with the serious choice of "conserving power or saving the nation", chose the first option, reinforcing the totalitarian behaviour of living a lie and maintaining paralysis. At that time, the Bishops, after a long and reflective wait, decided to publish their Pastoral Letter, "Everything waits for love". The reception of the Letter by the Cuban people marked an important change in the Church’s recent history. A considerable part of the population saw their problems, hopes and anguish reflected in the Bishops’ Letter. The government turned a deaf ear to the cries of the people prophetically expressed by the Bishops. The Church continued its efforts to find a peaceful and negotiated solution that did not exclude any sectors. For many, the most difficult problem for moving ahead with their proposal is not the government’s lack of will but that lack of a counterpart organization — civil society, social movements, political groups — that can dialogue with the State. The government maintains this theory, highlighting the weakness of dissident factions and saying that they depend on foreign support to survive. Dissidence, which is eminently peaceful, does not have the firm recognition or support from the hierarchy. This is our opinion. The Church’s major effort to open Cuban society was with the Pope’s visit. No one inside or outside Cuba denies the success of the papal visit. The question we need to ask, however, is what happened after the visit? The Five wounds of the Church More than 150 years ago, an Italian priest, the Rev. Antonio Rosmini, published a polemical book called "The Five Wounds of the Church". We are borrowing Rosmini’s title to refer to the five wounds of our Church. The meaning of the phrase for us is not exactly like the one used by Rosmini. The wounds we talk about have a particular meaning. These wounds are the challenges faced by this Church because they are tied to its passion and its past and are sources of its commitment and its action. The new and the old Christians During his participation in the Twenty-seventh Inter-American Bishops’ Meeting, Bishop Adolfo Rodríguez spoke like the wise pastor he is. Among the important things he said, we want to highlight one refrain: in Cuba we have discovered that "the atheists are not that atheistic and that we Christians are not that Christian". The challenge of our faith, of serious commitment and living our lives according to the Gospel, is here and demands reflection and sincerity. A variant of this is seen by the presence of new and old Christians in the Church. The Church cannot lose sight of the support of the first group and the weight of the second. It needs to strengthen the commitment of both groups. Foreign clergy, Cuban clergy The increase in the number of priests and religious men and women is seen as one of the principal fruits of the Pope’s visit, which is undoubtedly true. But the appearance of new pastoral agents is also an element that must be analysed. The new-old, secular-regular, foreign-national dialectic is present and causes both tensions and positive reactions. First, it is important to recall that there are no "foreigners" in the Church. The recently arrived must be welcomed. They bring to our Church new methods, enthusiasm, energy and imagination. We have a lot to lean from each other. We need to apply "a healthy division of work" with respect to the country’s problems. Cubans need to take on a greater level of responsibility and initiative, because we are Cubans and because we are less vulnerable to "certain administrative actions" that could be used against foreigners. There needs to be dialogue and sincerity for us to walk together even though we have different styles. Improvising as a way of doing things and paternalism Improvising has become an integral part of "being Cuban" and has infiltrated the Church and our pastoral work. This situation has marked us with its seal without us being aware of it. This is, however, inevitable in the situation in which we live — we live in a country without a future. This is why the Church must insist on identifying with objectives. We may have to improvise at the moment, but this should not cause us to lose sight of the long-term vision. What should we respond to? What do we want? What do we want to save and what do we need to change? These are questions that we must ask continuously without forgetting the fragility of the people with whom we work, who have been permeated by a "learned defencelessness". Building the Church and service to the people We do not think that anyone wants to return to 1961, to the time of confrontations. At the same time, however, we cannot abandon our commitment to the country and keep quiet with our arms crossed. For those who oppress the people, any action by the Church in defence of human rights, justice and freedom will be seen as "getting involved in politics". We know that the Church carries out an unparalleled contribution when it exercises its triple mission of evangelization, worship and charity, but we cannot avoid dealing with injustice, oppression and defenselessness like the man in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Church’s responsibility becomes much greater when the people suffer so many injustices and limitations. Poverty in the Church and the exodus of Christians The Church’s economic possibilities have improved in recent years thanks to the aid we have received from different parts of the world. We have gone from being a poor Church to a Church that "has and gives" and which runs the danger of "remaining with the lion’s share". Our way of living, our homes, our cars should be at the service of the people and modest. We only need enough to ensure that we can efficiently carry out our work. Modesty in means and simplicity of attitude, above all in the spirit of service, is something we should guard jealously. The Bishops should discuss with priests how money is spent, and priests should consult with their congregations. Maximum clarity in this issue is necessary to guarantee administrative transparency. At times we have the impression that the concern for material things, including churches, makes us forget the essential issue that should concern us: Building a Church that is completely at the service of the Kingdom of God. One issue that we cannot avoid addressing is the exodus, which once again threatens to empty our communities and decimate our people. In the exodus we see the traditional individualistic response that we Cubans have offered our country. The Church must have the courage to eliminate what is not committed to the people. A Church without this spirit of sacrifice will never leave the darkness of totalitarianism. Finally ... dialogue Dialogue has been a recurring theme in our Church in the past 20 years. Since the beginning of the Ecclesial Reflection in the early 1980s, we have been proposing dialogue as the way to leave the current situation behind. Bishop Adolfo Rodríguez brought up the issue again at the Twenty-seventh Inter-American Bishops’ Meeting. There is, however, an essential contradiction in the proclamation of "National Dialogue" as a way out of the crisis, because it implicitly leaves this dialogue in the hands of the government. The proposal for dialogue, then, becomes a trap from which there is no way out. It is time for us to ask about the possibility and necessity of a national dialogue that would include the participation of civil society that is organized (churches, fraternal organizations, and autonomous groups). Pope John Paul II, despite his health problems, came to Cuba and gave us a message that would allow the Church and the people to retake the reins of their destiny. Our Church knew how to prepare for the visit, with missions and reaching people by going from door to door. The people responded to the Church’s call and showed that it has the ability to convoke people. But after the visit we did not know what to do. We have the impression that we did not have an answer to what may have happened and what, in fact, did happen: That the government used the visit as a propaganda tool outside the country and to defend the status quo within it. What is sad is that we could have prevented this, but we were incapable of searching for alternatives. The silence of our Church in the face of new, repressive laws and the troubles of the four dissidents who wrote, "A Homeland for All", is troubling to say the least. The message we offer of commitment, hope and optimism in a patient and constant struggle must come from our commitment to our people, an analysis of our reality and a liberating teaching. There is no liberating truth that does not pass through the mystery of the incarnation and the experience of the cross. We are all responsible.
Ref.: LADOC, vol. XXX, July/August 2000. Excerpts Reprinted from CIAS (Argentina), YEAR XLIX, No. 492, May 2000.
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