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Pray for the Persecuted Church in Cuba and in Other Communist Lands

07-27-2021From the desk of Fr. Villa

Carlos Eire is a noted author and a professor at Yale and has written a beautiful biography of St. Theresa of Avila. He is also Cuban. Here are some selected comments from him on the protests in Cuba:

The military junta that rules Cuba has just received a great shock. For the first time since Fidel Castro created a totalitarian communist dictatorship six decades ago, thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets from one end of the island to the other, chanting “liberty,” “down with the dictatorship,” and “down with communism.” And it is coming mostly from young Cubans, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the so-called revolution. 

Lately, life in Cuba has become more unbearable than ever for just about every Cuban. The crisis is due to a long string of blunders and catastrophes: The loss of revenue from Venezuela, a collapsed economy, gargantuan foreign debt, a disastrous sugar harvest, uncontrolled inflation, a plague that is intensifying in Cuba rather than abating, a crumbling health care system, medication shortages, food shortages, water shortages, electricity blackouts, and increased repression, to name but a few. Never mind the sanctions by the United States or the so-called embargo that Cuba’s military junta and many of the world’s news outlets are blaming for the current crisis. These are inconsequential factors, a decoy skillfully manipulated by the oligarchs in order to distract from their own ineptitude and the congenital defects of the communism they embraced. These protesters know the ultimate cause of their distress is their lack of freedom in all spheres of life, which is nothing new.

Read his full remarks here: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/war-cries-in-cuba

We pray for the Cuban people, the people of China, Vietnam, Korea and all countries suffering under the dreadful and evil regimes of communism. May they cast off this yoke.

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