Castro's Useful Idiot

Diocese Report ^ | August 5th, 2003 | Michael S. Rose

[Texas_Dawg]

Protection of Catholics in the country.

I wish you could see the state of the Catholic Church in Cuba. Pope John Paul was a crusader against Communism at one point, but he got old, and the Vatican got soft after the wall fell. And the forgot about the Cubans. What Christians go through there is beyond words. I spent a week there in April. It's a psychotic place.

[Texas_Dawg]

Nobody pays attention to the Pope on foreign policy because he remains silent in the face of tyrants. Like Castro.

I'm not big fan of the Vatican, but at one point this Pope was great in the fight against Communism. He's gotten too old though and he is surrounded by Marxists under him. It's a sad exit to a great man's life.

[nickcarraway]

You claimed that the Pope ``condemned the U.S. and Britain.'' After how many posts, you still can't present a shred of evidence to support that statement. By the way, this thread was about something else, but any thread is an excuse to bash the Pope.

[nickcarraway]

By the way, how can you criticize the Pope's attitude towards the United States, when you are a fan of the National Catholic Reporter? Show me anything by the Pope dripping with the hatred for the U.S. displayed by that publication. The Pope has often praised the U.S., but to the NCR the U.S. is the source of all evil in the world.

[sinkspur]

By the way, how can you criticize the Pope's attitude towards the United States, when you are a fan of the National Catholic Reporter? Show me anything by the Pope dripping with the hatred for the U.S. displayed by that publication. The Pope has often praised the U.S., but to the NCR the U.S. is the source of all evil in the world.

I'm a fan of John Allen, Rome correspondent for NCR. I've never posted anything from NCR that criticizes the US, because I don't agree with them on it.

What does the NCR have to do with the Pope's criticism of American foreign policy? I don't see the connection.

[Texas_Dawg]

"And what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than 12 years of embargo?" he said.

http://www.americancatholic.org/News/JustWar/Iraq/papalstatement.asp

The American-led U.N. embargo was the reason for their suffering??

Tariq Aziz's 4th Vatican Visit

"He received red carpet treatment at the Vatican for his fourth visit there since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, entering by the gate normally reserved for heads of state in a motorcade of 10 limousines."

I don't mean to bash this Pope because as I said in a post above, I believe he is a great man and was once a great crusader against Communist tyranny. But he is very old and suffering from a terrible disease and has some horrendous advisers around him. The combination of all those things resulted in them being way too easy on tyranny this time around.

[sinkspur]

You claimed that the Pope ``condemned the U.S. and Britain.'' After how many posts, you still can't present a shred of evidence to support that statement. By the way, this thread was about something else, but any thread is an excuse to bash the Pope.

Nick, the Pope condemned the war. By impication, that's a condemnation of the US and Britain.

This thread was about a defender of Castro, and I merely pointed out that the Pope has been silent on Castro's atrocities.

[Atchafalaya]

Father Bottoms has bottomed out.

[sinkspur]

"He received red carpet treatment at the Vatican for his fourth visit there since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, entering by the gate normally reserved for heads of state in a motorcade of 10 limousines."

Aziz, a war criminal, received the red carpet treatment, and the Pope read Tony Blair the riot act when he visited shortly before the war began.

Ironically, when Aziz called on the Italian Prime Minister, he was told the Prime Minister couldn't squeeze him into his schedule.

[Sparta]

You might want to see this. Bring a barf bag with you.

[piasa]

Another thread about Father Benjamin, the Bush-hating, guitar playing Vatican-based French priest who coddled Baghdad ...

*Sigh.*

[sinkspur]

If Father Benjamin knew about 9/11, and didn't tell anybody, he ought to be tried in a military tribunal, and then shot.

[piasa]

That should have been done to him when he organized the breaking of the embargo on Iraq at the same time the French and Russians were pushing to break it. How conveeenient.

As for him "knowing about 911," I don't think he did, unless his friend Tariq Aziz of Iraq also knew about it and spilled the beans, which would imply Iraq did indeed have something to do with it in spite of assorted denials by the left.

The first time any word of him "knowing about 911" didn't occur until two days AFTER 911 in a Catholic publication. I think the tale was just an effort to curry amazed adoration from the Madonna-sighted-in-every-potato-chip faction in the church, assorted conspiracy theorists, etc. I see no reason to believe he knew it in advance.

I'm more interested in the possibility this guy isn't in the church's employ sprititually so much as he and others like him, such as the "liberation theology crowd" which has for so long plagued central and South America are spiritually bought and sold by more "earthly" ideologies and states.

It's bad company for a pope to keep, particularly an aging one.

[piasa]

The priest's passion for Cuba seems to center on the defense of five Cuban men who were arrested in Florida several years ago and charged with espionage, using false identification, and conspiracy to murder. All five were convicted June 8, 2001 and received prison sentences from 17 years to life.

I believe this refers to the "Wasp Network" or "Wasp group" which had operated in the US and which had been tasked with finding places to hide smuggled weapons and Cuban agents, as well as with keeping tabs on MacDill AFB.

The arrest of this group seems to have led to the discovery of Elena Belen Montes, a Cuban spy. She had written false reports on the Cuban military and Cuba's capabilities which were used to bolster the effort in the US congress to drop the sanctions on Cuba, and her activities also led to the capture of US "human assets" by the Cubans upon their arival on the island. Some claim those people are alive but I don't believe that has been proven. She was arrested shortly after 911, in September, while phoning her Cuban bosses.

[piasa]

Couple charged as spies

Washington Times--[Excerpt]

FBI Agent Hector M. Pesquera, who heads the bureau's Miami field office, announced the arrests. In July, in the wake of the convictions of the five Cuban spies, Mr. Pesquera pledged that additional arrests would be made in what he described as a continuing inquiry. He told reporters at the time that his office had "not finished the investigation." Federal authorities said that the espionage by the Garis occurred between 1991 and 1998, and that Mrs. Gari used her U.S. Postal Service job to gain access to mail sent by and intended for Cuban Americans.

The couple also are suspected of conducting surveillance on the Cuban American National Foundation, an influential exile group, and of unsuccessfully trying to infiltrate the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Mr. Gari, who worked for Lockheed Martin in Orlando, had been ordered by his Cuban handlers to apply for work at the Southern Command, according to authorities, although they did not elaborate.[End Excerpt]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This is the well-known pattern that has followed in all countries where Communism has taken over as a measure to control power. Cuba is no exception. The bottom line is that the Cuban people are not able to exercise their God-given right to free-will. Castro's recent crackdown has given the world more evidence of this fact.

BUMP!

[TradicalRC]

I agree. I think that the strain of Catholicism that leans towards "social justice" has a myopic tendency to sympathise with people of the left and their ideas even if they ARE brutal dictators. OTOH, they seem to have the same instinctive prejudice against certain right oriented nations where freedom (and therefore capitalism) are allowed to flourish.

Yes, materialism is a problem, but it pales next to the brutality of a dictatorship. For some reason, the players in the global culture hold America to a far higher standard than they hold the dictatorships to. In a microcosmic way, it echoes the higher standards the liberals hold conservatives to.