Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 5:18am

PopeWatch: Cuba

 

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

 

The Babalu Blog, the go to site for news on Cuba, predicted the papal involvement in the “normalization” of relations with Cuba announced yesterday by Obama:

We’re not clairvoyants or prophets.  We just deal with the facts.

Eleven months ago, when Secretary of State John Kerry visited the Vatican, a Babalu post asked: “Will Pope Francis Bring About the Release of Alan Gross?”

Here’s a quote from that post:

How’s this for a scenario?:  Pope Francis gets Alan Gross freed in exchange for the four Castro spies, and, on top of that, orchestrates the restoration of US/Castro diplomatic ties, along with the lifting of the embargo.  And it will all make Obama look so righteous and compassionate rather than weak, all because of the glow lent to the whole deal by Pope Francis’s halo.

Such speculation is not far-fetched.

Well, guess what?  Unfortunately, today’s events have proven that such speculation was in fact correct.

Yeah. The “embargo” has not been lifted yet…. but the current occupant of the White House has turned the circumventing of congress into a rare art form. Just wait.

Hate to say “I told you so.”  Those moments always involve a most exquisite and intolerable kind of pain.

 

Go here to read the rest.  The idiocy of the US embracing a broke, geriatric Communist dictatorship, one of the most oppressive and odious regimes on the planet, should be obvious and the Babalu Blog spells it out:

All major news outlets are reporting that Alan Gross has been released from prison with few details, except for that bastion of communist propaganda that is CNN:

Washington (CNN) — U.S. contractor Alan Gross, held by the Cuban government since 2009, was freed Wednesday as part of a landmark deal with Cuba that paves the way for a major overhaul in U.S. policy toward the island, senior administration officials tell CNN.
President Obama is expected to announce Gross’ release at noon.
Gross’ “humanitarian” release by Cuba was accompanied by a separate spy swap, the officials said. Cuba also freed a U.S. intelligence source who has been jailed in Cuba for more than 20 years, although authorities did not identify that person for security reasons. The U.S. released three Cuban intelligence agents convicted of espionage in 2001.

So the Obama administration traded 3 spies implicated in the murder of US citizens for a humanitarian worker and an “unknown” intelligence source. Because bowing to communists and terrorists is what Obama and his cohorts do best.

This is a major setback for the opposition and dissident movements in Cuba. The Obama administration, by making this “deal”, has confirmed that they are OK with the repression, brutality, incarceration, and murder the castro regime foists upon the opposition. And I will once again say what I have been saying since day one of this farce of a presidential administration, for the record: faced with the fact that he is, by far, the worst President this nation has ever seen, and with no true positive legacy, Obama is relying on the low hanging fruit of the Cuban embargo to placate the left. Look for President Executive Action to undermine codified US Cuba policy.

 

 

The involvement of Pope Francis in this dimwitted diplomacy is disheartening and unsurprising.  When the Cuban people regain their liberty they will recall their friends and enemies.  PopeWatch fears that Pope Francis will be rightfully placed in the latter category.

 

 

 

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Paul W Primavera
Thursday, December 18, AD 2014 6:45am

I have mixed feelings on this, but it is a red flag when Obama and Francis agree.

Alan
Alan
Thursday, December 18, AD 2014 7:20am

Not a good thing for Frankie to stick his nose in another countries foreign
policy……..imo.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, December 18, AD 2014 7:49am

I do not have mixed feelings. The peoples of Cuba and of the USA got zero, zilch, nada in return. Plus, opening up Cuba for US toutrism likely will be the final nail in (US Commonwealth) Puerto Rico’s economic coffin.

The Castros will continue untrammeld to imprison and execute dissidents. The freed commie spies will pose threats to Castros’ enemies including some in the USA, etc.

If both Obama and Francis did this, certainly it is doubly wrong.

I am in (sad) awe at recent popes’ love afffairs with totalitarian regimes.

Giving the devil his due: this isn’t yet as harmful to American interests as trading a US Army Cpl. deserter freeing-up six high-level jihadis chieftains . . .

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, December 18, AD 2014 8:29am

. Best cigars for soil reasons and best conga drum players ( an instrument that is boxers’ exercise also …a horizontal speed bag as it were ) like this video of Pedrito Martinez in NJ ….give the volume three seconds to kick in..

http://youtu.be/2Wv89NBLinE

Mary De Voe
Thursday, December 18, AD 2014 8:51am

Obama circumvents Congress and Pope Francis circumvents the Catholic church.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, December 18, AD 2014 9:53am

WHY would the pope do this?

James
James
Thursday, December 18, AD 2014 5:42pm

When Pope Benedict announced his abdication, a person (I really don’t remember who it was) who has a blog site predicted that Pope Benedict had effectively doubled the length of his papacy, and his influence would continue for years to come. I sincerely hope that person does not try to predict the stock market with his retirement savings.

Franco
Franco
Friday, December 19, AD 2014 12:58am

The Three Amigos: the anti-Western, anti-Christian, Marxist leader
of Western Civilization, Hussein, the Commie, Argentina’s stern
advocate of Liberation Theology and great, radical modernizer of
the Catholic Church, the Proletarian Pope, and finally those two crazy
commie mass murders from Havana, who are aroused by the horror and
agony of murder and torture, those crazy boys from Havana, the Castro
brothers.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, December 19, AD 2014 9:13am

Aaaaaargh…. and this is where having a bad theory of economics is a horrible problem: in one step, the Pope has strengthened a guy who supports not just abortion, but death by exposure for those who survive abortion, and he’s propped up a member of a psycho murderer family that desperately needed the help to keep his powerbase.

Does he think that China is a great example of where Cuba can go or something?

Sydney O. Fernandes, MD
Sydney O. Fernandes, MD
Friday, December 19, AD 2014 10:47am

This Cuba business, under the auspices of Pope Francis and the “I am a Christian” Islam-loving, commie and socialist-loving President, is, I believe, what is called gathering everyone under the Big Tent: the poor, marginalized (never understood the term), murderers, crooks, and the real and moral “untouchables” in this world: the sum effect of indiscriminate application of the finely-honed beatitudes on the Mount.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Friday, December 19, AD 2014 2:55pm

Lapsed Catholics Gloria Estefan and her husband Emilio, prominent in the Miami Cuban American community, supported Barack Hussein Obumbler in 2008. Estefan’s father took his family and fled Cuba after Bautista abdicated. Her father was in the Cuban military and was a Batista bodyguard. Estefan said that she would never perform in Cuba as long as the Castros lived.

Now, the dimwit that the Estefans supported has taken a knife and shoved it in the backs of the remaining exiles from Cuba that left behind everything – their homes, businesses, property, family members. Most of those people who were adults in 1959-1963probably aren’t around anymore and their kids and grandchildren don’t have the same anti-Castro animus their ancestors had.

Wonder what Gloria and Emilio think now.

Pope Francis is probably among those pseudo-intellectuals who permeate Latin American political thought that praise Fidel Castro. Cuba is a tropical gulag and one of the most repressive nations on earth, but the Latino Left loves him because he stuck his finger in the eye of Uncle Sam. Pope Francis is nicer to the Cuban dictatorship than he is to the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculata.

Since the end of WWII, the United States military has been on almost every continent on earth, defending Koreans, Vietnamese, throwing out the Grenadan coup plotters, etc., etc. Yet, Castro stays because JFK promised Khruschev not to take his Communist ass out.

The US military could wipe out the Castro dictatorship in two weeks or less, but Obumbler appeases Castro.

Buchanan is not the worst President. Neither is Carter. It’s Obumbler.

CAM
CAM
Sunday, December 21, AD 2014 1:11pm

Re Obama and Pope Francis 1: Those two should worry less about their legacies and more about the harm that results from their pronouncements. The Pope and Fidel have something in common, both educated at Jesuit schools.
I have a dear friend who escaped at age 4 when her grandmother took her and her 3 sisters on a “vacation” to the US. Her parents made a daring escape a year later. Through the years she has told me of meeting released political prisonsers at her parents’ home. Men physically broken because of the torture and deprivations suffered in Castro’s jails. Cuba continues to be a police state. If Americans travel to Cuba on a cultural tour they are allowed only on certain streets. It’s all a sham. Every citizen receives a toaster! But there is no electricity.
Anyone who views the Castro brothers and the late Che Guevara as heroes are fools.

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Sunday, December 21, AD 2014 1:56pm

U.S. Chamber of Commerce and friends looking for another cheap pool of labor, which oppressive communist regimes are happy to provide. (Amnesty is another source.) Labor is plentiful, and tyrants and central planning committees control wages. Enjoy the savings first worlders!

Given the pope’s previous comments about economies and markets, his support for Cuba is not surprising and yet also hypocritical.

trackback
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 12:01am

[…]   Pope Francis’ Cuba Diplomacy […]

gyh
gyh
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 8:38am

Pope Francis has the same policy on this as JP II and Pope Benedict.

The argument that we did not get anything for this might have some merit from a political standpoint, but from a religious one it makes no sense. What the church gets is the US embassy to go to for support if the regime starts bothering it. The US embassy will be able to protest and bring international pressure on the Cuban regime if it starts harassing the church. And from a purely practical standpoint, we all know that embassies are used as bases for intelligence operations. So we will have that advanced capability in the country as well.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Monday, December 29, AD 2014 8:22pm

??? “What the church gets is the US embassy..” What are you thinking gyh?! The US Dept of State and embassy will protect Catholics? The State Department has actively pushed against the Catholic Church even in Catholic countries much less in atheist countries like Cuba. ( Gay rights , abortion- )

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