If Raúl Castro truly wants to return to the faith, he must change Cuba’s vicious ways

If Raúl Castro truly wants to return to the faith, he must change Cuba's
vicious ways
by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith
posted Wednesday, 13 May 2015

The Cuban leader claims he may come back to the Church, but is it
nothing more than a canny move to shift the focus from the repressive
nature of his regime?

After a recent meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican, the President
of Cuba, Raúl Castro said: "I will resume praying and turn to the Church
again, if the Pope continues in this vein," adding, "I am not joking."

Can this possibly be true? Mr Castro is 83, an age at which people often
think about their eternal destiny. But he also presides over a regime
which is not only officially atheist, but also one that had persecuted
the Church for decades, and which carries out policies that are deeply
inimical to the Church's social teaching.

With regard to the Church's social teaching, where even to begin? There
are many ways in which Cuba is the antithesis of what a good country
should be. Take the matter of the death penalty. Remember this old story
from more than a decade ago? Some Cubans, desperate to get away from the
country, hijacked a ferry, which sadly ran out of fuel before it made it
to Florida. Three of them were executed by firing squad, after a very
short judicial process. Their fate is emblematic of the way Cuba treats
its people.

If Mr Castro is serious about returning to the Church, then it would be
one of the most famous conversions in history, up there with Paul of
Tarsus. As a lapsed Catholic all he has to do is go to confession, but
what a confession that would be! It would involve repudiating the last
sixty or so years of Cuban history, or more accurately, repudiating the
last six decades of his own personal history, which has been intimately
connected with that of the regime. Such a repudiation would effectively
mean not just the end of his involvement in the Cuban regime, but the
end of the regime itself. For Cuban government has as its foundations
the sins of the Castro brothers and their associates, and it cannot
survive without the perpetuation of those sins.

Anyone who wishes to return to the Church must renounce the sins that
keep them away from the Church. To return to the Church, Castro needs to
recognise and admit that the repression of the last half-century is a
crime against humanity and against God.

He talks about praying: that is encouraging, for when we pray we see God
face to face and He shows us a reflection of ourselves, which is often
not a pretty picture. To pray is to be impelled to change. If Mr Castro
starts praying, he may be impelled to change.

Though Mr Castro informs us that he is not joking, my suspicion is that
he is playing games with us. Men on the brink of repentance and
conversion, do not stay on that brink very long. They are impelled by
the force of the Holy Spirit to cast themselves on the Divine Mercy.
They do not stand on the brink and talk about it.

If Mr Castro is playing games, the motive would be political. The Pope
is visiting Cuba in a few months' time. After that the Pope will make
his way to the United States. The Cuban visit will be watched carefully
in America. The "will he, won't he" conversion story may attract a fair
amount of attention, and take the focus away from the repressive nature
of the regime. That would be a canny political move. A conversion would
signal the surrender of the regime to the forces of civility. Talk of a
conversion might simply extend its life.

Source: CatholicHerald.co.uk » If Raúl Castro truly wants to return to
the faith, he must change Cuba's vicious ways -
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/05/13/if-raul-castro-truly-wants-to-return-to-the-faith-he-must-change-cubas-vicious-ways/