Читать книгу Fidel & Religion - Fidel Castro - Страница 20
ОглавлениеI found out that the delegation had canceled its trip. That was good news for me. After dinner I received a message that someone would call me that same evening for a meeting with the comandante. At 11:45 p.m. his Mercedes Benz drew up at the door.
“Where are your parents?” Fidel asked.
I told him they had just gone to sleep but that I would wake them up. He wouldn’t hear of it, and he invited me to go for a drive through the city. He’d just come from a dinner at the residence of the apostolic nuncio, given in honor of Monsignor Cordero Lanza de Montezemolo, nuncio in Nicaragua and Honduras, who was visiting Cuba at the personal invitation of the commander-in-chief. We talked about the situation of the church in Nicaragua, and I told him my opinion that the bishops’ failure to explicitly and directly denounce the aggression promoted by the US government was harming the life of faith of many Nicaraguan Christians, mainly the youth, who didn’t feel supported by their parish priests. Anticommunist prejudices were keeping the episcopate silent regarding the actions by the mercenary troops stationed in Honduras who go into Nicaraguan territory to murder farmers and even children. The victims included the Barredas; the husband had led a course on Christianity, and I had met him in Estelí during a pastoral meeting in 1981. Throughout history, people of the church have committed a serious mistake by remaining silent in the face of the criminal elimination of human lives, in the name of the alleged defense of orthodox principles. My contact with the popular Christian communities in Sandino’s homeland has taught me that all is not lost. Faith is reborn with even greater strength from these tests, with the awareness that the church is not the exclusive preserve of the bishops and priests but belongs to all people of God in communion with their pastors and with the pastors at the service of the people.
The comandante listened to me. Then, before starting to talk about Cuba he said, “I prefer not to meddle in the internal affairs of the church.”
Late that night when he took me home, I insisted on waking my parents up. Quite surprised, in housecoat and pajamas, they greeted Fidel in the living room. When he found out that we were returning to Brazil via Mexico, he started reminiscing about when he had lived in the capital of that country and commenting with my mother about the preparation, seasoning, and taste of Mexican food.
