God and Profits: How the Catholic Church Is Making A Comeback in Cuba

[Dale_M]

Despite the suspicious title, the article is pretty interesting. It claims that the Catholic Church is being given new found freedom and influence because it is helping to promote the economic reforms which Raul Castro desperately wants to succeed. And that means a move towards entrepreneurial free enterprise.

It’s been a year of resurrection for Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church. Last November, it opened a new seminary — the first since Fidel Castro’s communist revolution all but shut down the church 50 years ago. In May, Cuba’s bishops finished brokering the release of 115 political prisoners. Though education is strictly the role of the regime, Catholic dioceses have been able to expand their training of teachers, civic leaders and entrepreneurs — they even offer that iconic capitalist degree, the M.B.A. A statue of Cuba’s Catholic patroness, La Virgen de la Caridad (Our Lady of Charity), is being hailed by large, devoted crowds as it tours the island before her 400th anniversary next year. “It demonstrates a spiritual desire in Cubans,” Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Cuba’s top prelate, told me. It is, he adds, “a return to God.”

The church is discovering that being the first — and only — alternative institution to the Cuban revolution is both a blessing and a curse. As President Raúl Castro, who took over for his ailing older brother Fidel in 2008, tries to engineer politically perilous economic reforms in his severely cash-strapped nation, he seems to have decided the church is the only noncommunist entity he can trust to aid those transitions without seriously challenging his rule. Speaking to the National Assembly in August, Raúl even offered a mea culpa for decades of blacklisting “Cubans with religious beliefs.” Says Ortega: “We’re breathing an atmosphere of change, feeling a moment when there are no more confrontations” between church and state.

news.yahoo.com/god-profits-catholic-church-making-comeback-cuba-153000434.html;_ylt=AnS1iZI3WkvaEaZin_s8oyM7Xs8F;_ylu=X3oDMTQzYmZrc3RoBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBVU1NGIFJlbGlnaW9uU1NGBHBrZwM0MmQwZmYxOC1lM2QzLTM2OGQtOWFlZS00ZDcyYjhiODAxN2MEcG9zAzcEc2VjA3RvcF9zdG9yeQR2ZXIDOTNiOGMwNTAtZWJlZC0xMWUwLWE3M2QtZDkyY2NjOTcyYTMx;_ylg=X3oDMTFwc3ZuNThtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAN1c3xyZWxpZ2lvbgRwdANzZWN0aW9ucw–;_ylv=3

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Despite the suspicious title, the article is pretty interesting. It claims that the Catholic Church is being given new found freedom and influence because it is helping to promote the economic reforms which Raul Castro desperately wants to succeed. And that means a move towards entrepreneurial free enterprise.

news.yahoo.com/god-profits-catholic-church-making-comeback-cuba-153000434.html;_ylt=AnS1iZI3WkvaEaZin_s8oyM7Xs8F;_ylu=X3oDMTQzYmZrc3RoBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBVU1NGIFJlbGlnaW9uU1NGBHBrZwM0MmQwZmYxOC1lM2QzLTM2OGQtOWFlZS00ZDcyYjhiODAxN2MEcG9zAzcEc2VjA3RvcF9zdG9yeQR2ZXIDOTNiOGMwNTAtZWJlZC0xMWUwLWE3M2QtZDkyY2NjOTcyYTMx;_ylg=X3oDMTFwc3ZuNThtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAN1c3xyZWxpZ2lvbgRwdANzZWN0aW9ucw–;_ylv=3

Why not? Ends justify means, for them.