The role of Pope Francis in the Cuba negotiations
There’s been praise and condemnation for Francis’ intervention in the Cuba deal:
Many Catholics worldwide have expressed pride in seeing Francis stirring hopes of progress in communist Cuba, but some Cuban-Americans say their spiritual leader betrayed them.
“I’m still Catholic till the day I die,” said Efrain Rivas, a 53-year-old maintenance man in Miami who was a political prisoner in Cuba for 16 years. “But I am a Catholic without a pope.”
I’m not Catholic, so for me it’s not personal. But when I heard that the present Pope—a Jesuit from Argentina—had been part of the Cuba negtiations, I wondered whether that wasn’t quite unusual and perhaps even out of place.
Francis’ role wasn’t small, either. It is described as having been “key.” The process started with encouraging letters from the Pope to Obama and Castro, and went on to more involvement:
The Vatican also hosted delegations from the two countries at what were said to have been the talks at which the breakthrough was made. Kenneth Hackett, the US ambassador to the Holy See, said a senior Vatican official had “played an important part in this historic moment by meeting US and Cuban delegations in October to help bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion.”…
President Obama discussed Cuba with the pope during his visit to the Vatican in March, and continued to work with the Holy See thereafter.
I remember all the hype over fifty years ago when JFK, the first Catholic to be elected president, was running for office. People were afraid that the Pope would dictate his policies or have undue influence over them. Obama is not Catholic, of course, nor do I think he did this because of the Pope, whom Obama would have ignored had the Pope’s suggestions not fit in with Obama’s desires as well.
I also know that, in terms of political intervention by a Pope, Pope John Paul II has been highly praised for contributing to the fall of Communism. But he didn’t do it by brokering secret deals between Reagan and Gorbachev, he did it by his own example and public actions. Those of you more conversant with the history of the Vatican might be able to shed more light on just how unusual—and perhaps even unprecedented—Pope Francis’ actions re Cuba might be.
I’ll add that the Pope is not a negotiator, and the Vatican—although technically an independent state—is not a country or a nation in the usual geopolitical sense. It is an ecclesiastical state, and as its head (as well as the head of the Catholic Church), the Pope is not interested in the usual quid-pro-quo of diplomacy between nations. The lack of any guarantees at all from Castro in return for the US granting quite a bit wouldn’t really be of concern to the Pope—who takes things, as it were, on faith. You might say that’s his business, rather than to be wary and hedge his bets.
That’s not the business of the president of the United States, though. At least, it shouldn’t be.
A Latin American Pope sympathetic to communist leaders. Wow! Who’d have thunk it?
Latin America is Marxist, this Pope included.
John Paul 2 knew what vipers they were, he combated them his whole life. He would have never laid down in this bed of snakes. JP 2, remember, publicly scolded a
Latin American priest who held an elected position & made him resign ! JP 2 knows how much blood is on the hands of Marxists whereas Francis just wants to erase the past & start over. Sad, it only encourages them.
It is being an appeaser !
The Left’s faith? The Christian faith? Or the Christian heretical faith?
Those aren’t the same things, technically.
My perception of Pope Francis is that he is, at best a very naive and evidently, politically ignorant man. Even more troublesome, he apparently lacked the common sense to have assistants investigate and inform him as to the nature and history of Obama and Raul Castro. Had he done so, he would have known that Raul Castro is a monstrous, murderous ideologue and would have realized that Obama stands actively opposed to liberty and religious freedom. He would have known that nothing positive could come out of a bargain between two such men.
That of course, assumes that Francis did not know for if he did, the inescapable conclusion is that Francis is not a friend of liberty but of the soft totalitarianism that rationalizes that its actions are “for the greater good”.
As a Jesuit helping the poor is a prime goal. Cuba has gotten about as much as it could from European investors who have been contributing hard cash to the Castro Regime.
Even before the collapse of the oil market, which means that Venezuela the Castros major supporters cratering, the cheap or free oil for doctors and nurses, that they were supplying will not last.
In the US there are millions of Cubans and Americans that will pump the hard $$$ that the Castros need to maintain their socialist utopia a little longer.
Whether this will translate into gains into major gains for the poor in Cuba is yet to be seen. One thing that this will do is provide a lifeline to the Castros.
Hey, I’m not anonymous!
“One thing that this will do is provide a lifeline to the Castros.”
Amen.
This also will, after Zero dismantles Guantanamo, provide a nice deep water port for Russia or the Chinese.
The Cold War electronic spying apparatuses are already being brought back online there.
Thanks, Zero.
Dang, I feel silly, my post went in prematurely as “anonymous,” and then that one disappeared after I wanked about it in a repost… Argh.
By now the Jesuits should have learned that overall you do not help the poor by enabling their oppressors to remain in power. If there’s starvation, send food. But what you do not do is enable totalitarian regimes.
Were the UN not a gang of thugs and self-serving leeches, it would long ago have called for forming a coalition of democracies to free Cuba from a government that violates the UN’s human rights guarantees on an hourly basis.
Totalitarian regimes survive because too many people tolerate them.
Mr. Frank and MollyNH are right. Latin American priests have long been known for their leftist leanings. Nothing new there to anyone who’s followed the history of the region, and not particularly surprising given the long nature of rightest dictatorial government prior to about 2000 or so. Now that dictatorial tendencies have move left, maybe the priestly class will reevaluate.
For those with long memories…
Pope Francis was fulsomely involved in sustaining the tyrants in Argentina, lo those many years ago.
In turn, they treated him like (politically active) royalty.
If you lift the (old) carpet, you’ll find that Pope Francis is VERY supportive of top-down Big Government.
His notions WRT economics are entirely anti-American, anti-Western. He largely blames our culture for the evils of this world. No wonder B.S. loves to use him as a stalking horse for the centralized state.
Argentina, of course, is a corporatist state — EXACTLY in the mold of fascism in Italy.
That’s why its economy keeps collapsing.
Like Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran…
There’s been a whole lot of stealing going on!
&&&&&
The end of Russian ‘sugar’ has Minsk in a twist.
It’s your first big ‘tell’ that Moscow is in free fall, for Putin is shedding his subsidies to Minsk — one way or another.
Virtually ALL of Putin’s natural gas customers have been using it to fire dual-use steam generators.* Now that OPEC crude has been repriced to the floor, Putin has entirely lost his ability to freeze out Europe.
* During the post-WWII phase, the Soviets introduced their style of centralized heating. (Common in Manhattan, BTW.) In this system, the power utility directly supplies steam heat to nearby buildings — DIRECTLY. A major boiler complex (actually quite a few in a major town) will produce all of the steam for electric power generation AND steam for heat — sent in insulated pipes out and around for blocks on end.
Invariably, these systems were set up to either burn coal or oil, typically both — and then upgraded to natural gas capability. It was for this reason that Russia’s export contracts linked natural gas pricing to oil pricing.
(This scheme also says much about the utter lack of transportation fuel demand in the Soviet bloc. Moscow simply skipped over the gasoline market. Even now, Russian refineries are not really set up to make gasoline. (!) Their oil production is so large, and their gasoline need is so minimal, that they simply work with the gasoline fraction that nature supplies.(!) )
OT
“Snyder also announced a crew of new contributors to upcoming issues including Ann Friedman, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Cathy Park Hong, Inga Safron, Jazmine Hughes, Jeff Ball, Thomas Rogers, Jen Doll, William Giraldi and Jeet Heer. Snyder wrote that these new voices and experts will “be diverse in race, gender, and background.”
“As we build our editorial staff, we will reach out to talented journalists who might have previously felt unwelcome at The New Republic. If this publication is to be influential, and not merely survive, it can no longer afford to represent the views of one privileged class, nor appeal solely to a small demographic of political elites,” Snyder wrote.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/12/new-editor-says-tnr-will-be-more-diverse-200281.html
This ^^^ is a further indication that my hunch was right: Hughes intended to dump the high priced ‘talent’ – probably from the start – and that getting them to walk out was THE financially savvy way execute his plan.
I’d crudely estimate that Hughes has lopped off 75% of his operating costs.
His model must be the digital HuffPoo.
Neo!
Most of those quotes were from Obama Admininstration people. They are using he Pope for cover!
This whole initiative is a despot to despot deal with Barack’s real goal to close Gitmo.
And for those posters that didn’t go to a Jesuit school, you have no idea what you are talking about.
The Jesuit Pope is not going to be used by a murdering dictator and an incompetent and failed liar.
He is way too smart and sophisticated.
And watch the Senate block this for the most part. No confirmed Ambassador and no real embassy.
From the Politico link that blert supplied about TNR;
Snyder wrote that these new voices and experts will “be diverse in race, gender, and background.”
But not in their politics.
cornhead:
I’m not sure what you’re meaning to say. Are you saying the pope wasn’t as involved as the administration is indicating?
Neo.
Yes. Exactly.
They are liars and exaggerators. “Exaggeration is another form of lying.” Baltasar Gracian, SJ.
And I can assure you the Pope knows Gracian backwards and forwards.
Check out his 15 vices speech to the Curia this week.
Never forget that Obama trademarked “If you like….” the biggest lie in American political history. The guy has less than zero credibility on anything important. Probably cheats at golf too.
Cornhead:
If they’re lying, why wouldn’t he speak out about it?
Then it comes out as a “he said, she said” thing. The Pope can’t call POTUS a liar. The Pope then looks like an idiot and Obama pulls some Chicago-style payback stunt under the rader. Anyway everyone knows that Barack is a liar.
The Pope lets Obama make his exaggerated lie for now.
Obama and the Castros were going to cut this deal with or without any Papal involvement.
I suspect the Pope got something of real value out of this and he was probably concerned about the utter poverty those people live in. I hope ten new Jesuit schools was the consideration.
My high school Spanish teacher was almost executed by Fidel. The OWH cited him Sunday. He was not happy as he knows the Castros are cold blooded murderers. And, of course, Fidel is a Jesuit school alum. All true.
And I highly recommend Gracian’s “The Art of Wordly Wisdom.” It is a secret known only to a few and select; mostly Jesuit school alums.
Cornhead:
I disagree–I think if the Pope called Obama a liar, the Pope would be believed.
JFK & Cuba
While listening to the radio new one American reporter talking about US & Cuba matter he said the day JFK killed there were US envoy in Cuba discussing some sort of relations?
So after more 35 years now happen….
It was English-speaking Protestants who created the modern world. Spanish-speaking Catholics created dysfunctional corrupt authoritarian governments wherever they went.
Sorry, that’s just the truth.
The first story I read about Pope Francis had him uttering the phrase income inequality. The next story involved the words Castro and Cuba.
Don’t anyone be too surprised if if he can’t restrain himself and we start hearing him go on about descamisados.
On another note, Cornhead’s HS Spanish teacher put me in mind of Frank Ortiz, whom I knew years ago in Chicago. Frank had an import-export business in Cuba and one of the lines he handled was Max Gerber toilets and hardware. When I knew him we both worked at Max Gerber Plumbing Supply at California and Milwaukee. Frank told me an interesting story about the Good Old Days.
Frank had been approached about being in the Treasury Dept. He was supposed travel to a meeting toward that end but prior to that he had occasion to drive his friend, who was a general in the new government, to the airfield where he watched him get on a plane and saw the plane take off.
After his friend disappeared Frank spoke to officials who insisted his friend never got on the plane.
One thing was certain: when the plane landed the friend didn’t get off it.
Frank got together his money and, using his wife’s jewelry as persuasion, got himself and his family out of Cuba. When I knew him he had a sort of legacy place at Gerber Plumbing, having known the original Max Gerber way back when. Frank, one day in the late seventies when we sat at our desks eating sandwiches, before I went back to work and Frank took his afternoon nap (he was around 70), looked me sternly in the eye and said
Well – at least I made it to New Orleans. They have Carnival there too.
Then: John Paul ii, Thatcher, Lech Walesa, Reagan
Now: Francis, Harper, Jose Mujica, Obama.
We’re so f*cked
The Pope lets Obama make his exaggerated lie for now.
Which means he is in on the WMDeception and is guilty for it.
I wonder if the rationale Obama is using, 35 years of the same policy which hasn’t worked means its time for a new policy, isn’t just the beginning of normalizing relations with other terrorist regimes’ like Iran? Why not based on the logic used for the Castro’s?
Iran is “helping” fight ISIS in Iraq couldn’t you see Obama using it to claim legitimacy in normalizing relations with Iran?
Bella Dodd informed some people in around 1930s that the Left infiltrated several people into seminary, to become Catholic priests later on.
I surmised that they had a hand, directly or indirectly, in the Catholic priest sexual molestation issues in the US. Perhaps they were even more of a problem for the South Americans.
Face it. The Pope is a Bolshevik. So is Obama.
One can recognize that the left has successfully marched through the institutions and is now in control of everything. Or one could say that we are at “peak Marxism” in the West and if free peoples continue to fight, slow steady progress will be made in restoring the founding principles.
Depending on the day I support one or the other.
Bush-Hillary in 2016, that’ll restore the founding alrighty.
Bush-Hillary in 2016, that’ll restore the founding alrighty.
A big blinding light over DC would do much better.
I agree with you Harold, I do think we are at peak marxism right now !
I feel that there will be a huge resurgence in individual freedoms. The fall of the old media, the challenge to what has been entrenched, like Uber, taking on Taxis,
like blogs taking on what had been the previleged class of journalists, like ratting out the IRS & 2nd amendment supporters holding strong in the face of so much pressure. The Left would love to have the US be a society like China, Cuba, or Russia but I think the *time* that would have been possible has passed, we owe it to the internet. Here you do not feel you are the *only one*
Neo – If you followed Catholic news closely (which even most Catholics don’t do) by reading the newspapers, magazines and blogs, you would find utter confusion. There have been numerous claims as to what the Pope says (2nd hand) and what he really said or meant. It’s spin city. And he never clarifies or rebukes. Translations that are published use different phrases that convey vastly different meanings in different languages.
I follow a blog where the host and several commenters know Latin and they call things out. Sometimes the original translations are changed.
As you may imagine it is a difficult time to be a devout/”o”rthodox Catholic. Nothing in this post surprises me or is even anything new.
Obama could tell the hugest lies and the Pope will not issue any corrections/clarifications. While many “c”atholics love this pope, many of us who believe as the Church has always taught are puzzled and saddened.
As to the topic of the post (sorry to have gone off on a tangent) on one hand I can see that a Pope should always work towards ‘peace and reconciliation’ and figure that the leaders of this world will always mess it up. He has a completely different worldview (being from Argentina). He has no claim to be infallible in terms of economics (thanks be to God).
I was a bit unhappy when I heard of his role but he does want to help the poor (although I can’t see this achieving this goal).
I pray that our next Pope will be African (actually I’d like B16 to un-retire, but that will never happen).
The Vatican is one of the few diplomatic posts that’s capable of allowing interaction between hostile countries. Places like Venice and Amsterdam served that purpose in past centuries, and Turtle Bay has probably served that role in recent years, although less successfully. There’s no reason to be suspicious of a deal (or of the Vatican) just because it developed there.
While the argument about the role of Pope Francis in the Cuba negotiations, let not forgot that this will be Cuba: Back in Business with value of A $4.3 billion opportunity, specially for US companies and traders, new jobs hopefully.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cuba-back-business-ian-bremmer
Juli…
The odds are overwhelming that B16 was, and is, losing his memory.
THAT’S the perfect reason to retire from the Papacy.
B16 realized that in the months and years of such a decline, the Papacy would be, de facto, rudderless.
Rather than go on about his own travails — he just retired.
BTW, it’s almost axiomatic that brilliant minds lose their punch, their memories, before death.
In politics
Reagan
Thatcher
In the arts:
Falk
Nicholson
As you might imagine, it’s a rare individual that admits he’s losing his memory.
I can see by the non-response, Pope Francis’ extremely controversial history (political) with the junta in Argentina is not widely known in America.
If you care to troll through the Internet, you’ll find MANY an article — especially in Catholic circles — raising his ‘issues’ in politics.
Unlike all modern popes, Pope Francis was highly aligned with statist, Leftist, junta generals in Argentina.
Further, even to this hour, Argentina is run as a corporatist state.
The direct result is persistent currency crisis — and massively corrupted politics.
Christina is but another example of ‘Eva Peronist’ dynastic succession.
It’s worth some commentary: Pope Francis is VERY involved in the FINANCIAL affairs of the Vatican…
To an unseemly degree.
He may be ‘casing the Vatican’ for a ‘Shoes of the Fisherman’ financial debacle — whose ambit is to re-boot 2nd and 3rd world governments that have imploded.
In case you’ve not been told: the Third World is in a DIRE currency crisis consequent to the US dollar bull market, the end of Quantitative Easing/ hyper-inflation of the American money supply, and the ‘carry-trade’ from America’s debt markets into the Third World.
The ‘carry-trade’, for those not in finance, is the term of art for those speculators who borrow in US dollars (the First World) or Japanese Yen to lend/ invest in the Third World. Such players can live with a weak Yen. They get destroyed by a strong US dollar.
One MAJOR carry-trade that has just blown up: lending/ investing in Russia, Ukraine, … The ex-Soviet Union.
ANYONE involved/ exposed to carry-trade risk HAS TO BE the first out the door when the trend heads the wrong way.
This is EXACTLY the crowd that causes over-night currency breakdowns.
Moscow, Kiev — and now Minsk — are ALL getting hammered.
Thank you Putin, your irrational bastard!
It’s not as if Riyadh hadn’t already destroyed the Soviet Union by gutting the price of OPEC crude oil in the late 1980s. It’s as if both Moscow and Tehran lack any institutional memories.
Doh!
blert
Unlike all modern popes, Pope Francis was highly aligned with statist, Leftist, junta generals in Argentina.
Leftist Junta? Tell me another one. The Videla junta [1976-1983] killed off leftist guerrillas, along with thousands of innocents whose names were somehow associated with the Gs- such as being in their address books. I have never heard the Videla junta ever being described as “leftist.”
The generals kept government ownership of railroads, telecommunications, utilities, and oil. They were not trying for a transformation in the way that Pinochet was, but just trying to keep the economy running as it was. In that sense they might have been considered “leftist.” President Carter certainly did not appreciate the Videla junta’s selling wheat to the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the Junta did not like President Carter’s denunciations of human rights abuses in Argentina.
Speaking of popes and politics Murder in the Vatican: The CIA and the Bolshevik is an interesting read. It claims that Pope John Paul I, who was pope for only about a month in 1978, was killed for his “give to the poor” sentiments. The author further maintains that John Paul I was from his youth a leftist plant into the Catholic Church- his father was involved in leftist politics. Which the author sees as a good thing.
The junta was as far Left as el Duce.
Their politics were the exact opposite of Pinochet — who they couldn’t stand.
Peron and kin ran a Leftist centralist corporatist state.
With very rare exception, the politics of Argentina is the Left vs the Left.
The Left, corporatist generals are almost always described by Leftist liberals in the First World as Right Wing.
This is exactly the same crowd that thinks Hitler and el Duce were Right Wing.
A TRUE, classic Right Winger would advocate a dominating role for (the) state religion, and a royalist, blood line centered leadership clique.
THAT’S what was meant during its first use during the French Revolution — after the Bourbons were turfed out.
Revolutionary America was NEVER Right Wing. It was anti-royalist, anti-state religion, anti-nobility — from the get go.
Though the term is freely bandied about by the Leftists, America has NEVER had a Right Wing administration. See also, US Constitution. The essential core of Right Wing values are entirely banned.
Other common legal provisions in a Right Wing government are also prohibited/ banned:
Bills of Attainder
Ex-post facto law
Nobility/ special honors/ rights/ privileges
Diktat
These features are so delightful for tyrants that they also exist in Leftist corporatist states.
American politics is, in normal times, the politics of the Center, of consensus.
Barry Soetoro has thrown that harmony to the four winds —
with 0-care
with EO
with memoranda
with exponential increases in law by writ — the writ of special interests in Washington DC.
EPA
IRA
FCC
and so forth.
&&&&&
As for Leftist generals fighting Leftist anarchists/ fanatics —
That’s as old as the conflict between Hitlerism and Stalinism… Red on Red. Indeed, get a load of their flags!
Lest we forget: Maoists versus Bolsheviks —
North Vietnam versus Red China (1979 — and right now!)
The total collapse of Roman Catholic political power since the daze of the Bourbons — and Royals — has meant that Right Wing politics is essentially extinct.
So the Left has re-defined the Center as being Right Wing.
The French and American revolutions were political extinction events. What had been the universal political norm for all of human history — Right Wing politics — became extinct in less than two centuries.
This epic transition is so recent that modern man refuses to recognize it.
At this time, Right Wing has strictly pejorative import.
Even the so-called Right Wing neo-Nazis of Europe are really anarchists and nihilists — miles and miles away from Royalists and Theocrats — TRUE Right Wingers.