How Dare They?!?

"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."

In the latest episode in the Vitral magazine saga, the Bishop of Pinar del Río, Jorge Enrique Serpa Pérez, now says that the magazine will come back, but it will not have the same “aggressive” editorial tone that it had before.

Originally, they had said that the reason given for the suspension of publishing was lack of resources. Now the story is changing.

Especially since the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation offered to underwrite the publication.

I was getting ready to write another fire and brimstone “sermon” as to the utter hypocrisy of a church that refuses to confront and speak up against an evil atheistic tyranny. As a matter of fact I wrote it. Then, I thought of Father Grogan. Father Grogan was one of my political science professors. He was a Jesuit. He instilled in me a deep sense of indignation about social injustice.
“Surely”, I said to Fr. Grogan. “It is the Church’s duty to stand up to social injustice”, “Not doing so makes it complicit” (Jesuits are big on sins of omission)

Fr. Grogan smiled and I remembered sneaking around to the back of a church in old Havana to get my newborn cousin baptized and a scared priest nervously looking over his shoulder, risking it all to perform the sacrament.

Not everyone is a Biscet. Not everyone is a Fariñas, Not everyone is a Martha Beatriz Roque. Not everybody is a hero willing to stand up and martyr themselves for the truth. Not everybody is a saint. Especially not me.

Whether the Bishop lied, buckled, blinked, put his tail between his legs, whatever the reason, it’s irrelevant. The real culprit here is the regime. A regime so vile, that it evens puts pressure on, threatens or blackmails the Church.

A regime so evil and hateful that it puts even those that are doing God's work, while looking over their shoulders in fear, in a position where doing the right thing could very well mean Martyrdom.

How dare they?!?! ... As Father Grogan would say...