Havana, Cuba – “The only thing is worth living and dying is for the truth,” said Father Leandro Pérez Acuña in his homily for the commemoration of Good Friday in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, located in the Vedado. The young Cuban pastor referred to the sacrifice of Jesus, crucified by Defend the truth of God and that, according to the Christian tradition, in this way he achieved the redemption of humanity.
But Father Leandro went further: he pointed out how in our country there are innocent imprisoned or suffering repression for defending truth and justice; How leaders, to maintain a car or status, submit the people to hunger, misery, blackouts and other vicissitudes.
He listened to his words with a mixture of surprise, admiration and gratitude for identifying with the oppressed. Although I am not a devout Catholic, I attended commemoration as on other occasions, it was not the first time that I reported a pilgrimage of this type. I believe in God and I have always been attracted to religious rituals, I also feel a special affection and respect for the previous pastor of this Church, Father Lester Rafael Zayas Díaz, who represents a generation of priests committed to the Cuban people.
After the homily, Father Leandro told those present (about 200 people) to leave the temple to start the pilgrimage. Once outside, the operation of the political police was so excessive that it became evident: several men and women dressed in civilians located in the corners and their surroundings, had even opted, next to the church, a bus of the so -called “rapid response brigades.”
Almost at the end of the pilgrimage, two women dressed as civilian and who identified themselves as officers of the Ministry of Interior, stopped me and demanded that my identity card show them. I insisted that, since they were not uniformed or shown me their credential, I did not have to comply with their orders; Even so, I decided to show them waiting for the outcome.
Those who have gone through this type of situations in countless times, we know how it operates The Political Police: First they stop you, they ask for your card (to corroborate your identity or to simulate that they follow the procedure), and then they ride you in the police patrol.
There were dozens of people recording the pilgrimage, only they submitted to this “procedure.” Why did they do it? Why didn’t they stop me? Don’t know. The officers looked at a man as a fifty -so many years, also dressed as a civilian, waiting for orientations; He finally told them to let me go. Maybe because they realized that I was recording. Maybe they decided at the last time to avoid a scandal in which they would involve the Catholic Church because it would be An arbitrary detention (without court order and by paramilitaries) in the middle of one of the most important religious commemorations.
For decades, the Cuban regime imposed a strong control over civil society institutions. In this way, to develop this type of events outside their temples, the churches must request prior approval from the authorities, say office for the care of fraternal and religious matters of the central committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. Although on previous occasions they had already rejected the procession permit to this same church, this time, obviously, they granted it.
However, there were more than thirty undercover agents, willing to suppress. What were you afraid of? What did they intend to avoid? What danger did Christian devotees represent for the regime, mostly elderly? Was it a deployment of intimidation? And if this were the case, intimidate them why or to prevent them from doing what? Who demonstrated fear, parishioners or the “guards”?
How dangerous can it be a devotion procession to Jesus? The danger is his ideas, his truth, his example of sacrifice.
The truth and its dissemination, the Truth as premise And example, as armor and banner, that is what they fear those who order repression, who submit to the people. And the truth represents both a journalist who records and describes reality with his only weapon: his cell phone and his word, as an innocent resisting torture in a dungeon for expressing freely.
The truth is so powerful that he is able to resist and last millennia. That is why the truth of Jesus has subsisted more than 2,000 years, and that is why the truth of the Cuban people, our struggle for justice and freedom, sooner or later, will also be our redemption.
