12-12-06, 9:25 am

THE Cuban ecclesiastical authorities met in the Pastoral Forum of the Cuban Episcopal Cathedral in Havana in order to respond to provocative and offensive statements to the Cuban government and the Cuban Council of Churches by Jitka Klubaloba, general secretary of the Ecumenical Council of Churches of the Czech Republic, and signed a statement condemning her utterances.

Participating in the meeting were Dr Reinerio Arce, rector of the Matanzas Evangelical Seminary; Raúl Suárez, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center; Yolanda Brito, vice president of the Cuban Council of Churches; the Reverends Odén Marichal and Rafael Columbié; as well as other leading figures in ecumenical movements, and the island’s parishioners.

Their document constitutes a defense to the statement by Klubaloba that support for Christians on the island should not be channeled via the Cuban Council of Churches, which she described as an institution subordinated to the government.

The Cuban response says that those provocations compound other acts of aggression against the Cuban people and their government and fit perfectly within the framework of political lines adopted by the government of U.S. president George W. Bush with the aim of reversing the Cuban revolutionary process. At the same time, it states that they are seeking to intensify the blockade and cause more suffering to the Cuban people.

In that context, those present explained that these positions are far from being Christian and thus are unacceptable to the Cuban Council of Churches. “The blockade militates against the fundamental ethics of the Christian faith and the Czech Council is not taking into account the options for the poor.

Reverend Raúl Suárez affirmed: “in this pastoral action the Cuban Church is responsible before God for the Cuban people and these actions are related to the climate of peace in which we wish to live, with the security of the population and respect for national sovereignty.”

The proposal of the Czech Ecumenical official “is not an ecumenical action, it is a political action that is identified with anti-Cuba aggression. For that reason the disagreement of the Cuban Churches with these words must be stated loud and clear. God has allowed us to live in this land and give the faith of Jesus Christ to the Cuban people, because He has called us to be their pastors,” the religious leaders affirmed.

“It is a plan to lead the nation into a return to the past. Added to that is the aggression shown to Cuban families, where visits from their relatives resident in the United States have also been restricted, even if such visits are to have contact with sick or even dying family members. A hostile policy that is an attempt to halt the development of Cuba and asphyxiate the island economically, socially, culturally and religiously.”

The document affirms that “Christian reflection in terms of opposition to the blockade and the use of sanctions against Cuba is one step in the defense of life. These sanctions for political ends only cause suffering to the peoples, to the most disabled, children, the elderly and the sick. We oppose the blockade as a measure that is contrary to theological and Biblical fundamentals.”

From Granma