Apparently, the answer is “yes”:
Cuba has eased its persecution of religion in the last 23 years, but there have been few overtures suggesting the country’s executive office might be finding its faith.
That changed Sunday when President Raul Castro said the teachings of Pope Francis had persuaded him not only to take a softer line on religion, but perhaps to return to the Catholic Church and begin worshipping again as he once did, growing up in Jesuit schools.
Now, you could interpret that to mean that Raul Castro has suddenly seen the light and decided that Marxism is not his cup of tea, but somehow I doubt that’s the case. He’s no better than his older brother and previous communist dictator Fidel; they share the same radical ideology and have, together, changed Cuba into one of the most totalitarian nations on earth, where religious people are persecuted and those with different opinions are arrested, locked up in prison camps, tortured and even killed.
So why, then, would Raul consider rejoining the Catholic Church? The answer, I believe, can be found in Pope Francis’ obvious Marxist leanings:
Liberation Theology is taking over the Vatican a quarter of a century after John-Paul II systematically sought to stamp out the “singular heresy” in the radical parishes and dioceses of Latin America, a task carried out with dutiful efficiency by Cardinal Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The “preferential option for the poor” is back. The doctrine that so inflamed controversy in the 1970s and 1980, famously wedded to Nicaragua’s Sandinista cause, now has a Papal imprimatur. It is close to becoming official doctrine for the world’s 1.2bn Roman Catholics under “Evangilii Gaudium”, the Pope’s first apostolic exhortation. This will have consequences.
One of those consequences is, apparently, that one of the world’s leading Marxists — a dictator! — thinks his time has come to join the Church again. And the Left celebrates him for it. That would be shocking if not for the fact that progressives have tried to destroy Christianity for years now. Changing Catholicism into some kind of “spiritual communism” will undoubtedly help them achieve that aim, so it’s little wonder they’re so enthusiastic about Raul’s statement.
Actual religious Catholics should be worried by this, however. Marxist dictators like Raul Castro should fear the Church, not say they’ll rejoin it because the current pope is one of them.
Just for Raul, Pope Francis and all Catholics out there, here’s pastor Rafael Cruz — Senator Ted Cruz’s father — on the Castro regime:
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