Archdiocese of Mexico backs sentence of priest jailed for abuse

Father Alberto Reyes has emerged as a critical voice against the extreme poverty and repressive actions of Cuba’s police state, having himself experienced both and seen them in the lives of his fellow Cubans. / Credit: Rachel Diez/EWTN Noticias

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 13, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

In an interview with EWTN Noticias, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Cuban priest Alberto Reyes spoke about his apostolic ministry in Camagüey province, located in the central area of the island, and about how his defense of religious freedom on the island has earned him friends and enemies alike.

Reyes did not hesitate to say that in Cuba “communism will not survive” and “the Church will remain.”

The Cuban priest works in Esmeralda, a small town “that was once flourishing,” according to EWTN Noticias correspondent Rachel Diez. Today, the daily life of the people is the same as that of many others in Cuba, one of “sadness, migration, and deprivation,” he commented.

Since his ordination, Reyes has always been involved with the peripheries of society, in areas that have been very poor, but with a community of faithful always willing to serve just as they are in Esmeralda.

The diocesan priest has been a critical voice against the extreme poverty and the repressive actions of the police state, since he himself has experienced both and has seen them in the lives of fellow Cubans.

Reyes shared that although he grew up in an environment close to the Church, he never thought about consecrating his life to Jesus. “There are people who say that I’m very brave, but that’s not true,” he said.

“I think I’ve learned to flee forward [instead of running away from a problem to face it head on]. I have learned not to be taken captive by fear,” he added, noting that he has seen for himself the extreme poverty that exists in Cuba. “In Maisí [Guantánamo province] I saw children sleeping in cardboard boxes, something I had never seen before.”

The priest explained that he felt the need to let the outside world know about the suffering of the Cuban people in order to contrast that terrible reality with what the state propaganda apparatus presents to the world.

“This is a Cuba that’s going hungry and that’s a reality: People are hungry. That Cuban paradise of television and international propaganda doesn’t exist. What hurts me most about this Cuba is the hopelessness. People feel like they can’t do anything; they’re afraid,” Reyes said.

This fear, the priest continued, is understood because every time Cubans have expressed their disagreement with the communist regime, they have been silenced “with beatings and jail.” He recalled the spontaneous street protests of July 11, 2021, and said that they were a sign that the people “don’t want this system.”

That day thousands of Cubans took to the streets to call for freedom and better living conditions. The mass protests were violently repressed by the regime of President Miguel Díaz-Canel and to this day hundreds of the protesters are still in prison.

As the priest sees it, in 1959 the country supported the so-called Cuban revolution because “they were deceived” by Fidel Castro, who promised to restore the democracy that the dictatorship of President Fulgencio Batista had suppressed. “We were deceived and a [new] dictatorship was established, which is a prison that continues to this day,” he added.

“Let us be a free and prosperous people, because there is no right to keep this people in the misery that they are in,” Reyes said.

Several religious in Cuba have dared to denounce the abuses of the regime. Personally, Reyes has been the subject of “acts of repudiation,” the regime’s term for orchestrated acts of harassment against critics of the government who are singled out as enemies of the people.

“There have been many threats, sometimes worse and sometimes less. I feel like I’m doing what I have to do,” he said and condemned the violence and persecution to which dissidents are subjected in the country.

Finally, despite the obstacles and the complicated situation that Cuba is experiencing, the priest said that to achieve true change in the country, it is necessary to have “a people that accepts God and embarks on paths of prosperity and peace.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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The Governatorato (Vatican City State Administration) building in the Vatican. / Credit: www.vaticanstate.va

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 9, 2024 / 15:37 pm (CNA).
Rosario Murillo, wife of dictator Daniel Ortega and vice president of Nicaragua, announ… […]

Toronto, Canada, Aug 18, 2017 / 02:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Conscience protections for Catholic hospitals and other organizations could soon come under fire in the Canadian province of Ontario, with one assisted suicide group saying they may challenge this legislation in court.

Deacon Larry Worthen, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, warned that it becomes very difficult to defend objections to assisted suicide once it becomes legal.

“Of course our position would be that there should be no requirement for faith-based institutions to be involved in assisted suicide or euthanasia,” the deacon said. “It’s appropriate that not only the institution, but the individuals should be protected as well.”

“I think that conscientious objection in Canada, unfortunately, hangs by a thread,” he told CNA Aug. 17. “There are many of us fighting for this right, but the concern is that in a society where killing a patient is seen to be a compassionate and merciful act, then those who refuse to do it are by definition uncompassionate and uncharitable.”

“When you legalize euthanasia, and killing becomes moral, then that quickly becomes the norm, and those who deviate from that are seen to be outliers and unprofessional in their approach,” he added.

More than 630 people have killed themselves in Ontario under legal assisted suicide, but not at Catholic hospitals, CBC News reports. In Ontario, the law requires hospitals, hospices and long-term care centers that will not take part in assisted suicide to transfer the patient to a facility that will.

But Shanaaz Gokool, CEO of pro-assisted suicide group Dying With Dignity Canada, claims that the current Ontario law “gave an opt-out to basic and essential health care to hospitals that don’t want to provide for the dying.” She said transferring patients may not be easy for people nearing the end of life, the older, the frail, and those already in pain.

Gokool’s group presently says individual doctors or nurses should be able to choose not to take part in assisted suicide, but organizations should not be able to do so.

For Deacon Worthen, however, the rights of individuals and of facilities are linked “very closely together.”

“Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals spend their whole lives being at the beds of the sick, with the point of view of helping them, supporting, them, helping them with their pain. To ask the same individuals then to participate in the deaths of those patients strikes me as being totalitarian and inhumane,” he said.

“No individual should be forced to go against their conscience, especially in something as personal and emotional as the taking of human life.”

Similarly, Deacon Worthen backed the right of faith groups to have facilities to provide health care according to their faith, culture and tradition.

“In order for that facility to have that ethos or mission, it needs to be able to be free to follow the tenets of its faith without any coercion from the state,” he said. “A diverse society would require that.”

Deacon Worthen added that there are good inherent reasons to oppose assisted suicide, dating back to the ancient physician Hippocrates.

When people find themselves wanting to end their lives, he said, “the doctor should be there to provide the support that that person needs, so that they can feel that life is worth living, as opposed to agreeing with them, and participating in ending their lives.”

Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins said he is confident there is sufficient access to assisted suicide.

“We’re obviously monitoring it very, very closely and currently don’t have those concerns in terms of access,” he said, noting that many assisted suicides take place outside an institutional setting. Hoskins said “about half of medical assistance in dying happens at home.”

Dying With Dignity Canada is also challenging rules against freedom-of-information officers releasing the names of facilities that do or do not assist in suicides. The present policy differs from the Alberta province, which requires public health institutions that do not assist in suicides to publish data each week showing how many patients are transferred for medically assisted suicide.

Deacon Worthen also warned of cases where physicians pressured patients into ending their lives, where they had not already made the decision to do so.

“We’ve heard stories where health care practitioners are already suggesting assisted suicide to patients, and even encouraging that, and discouraging family members from aiding the person continuing their lives,” the deacon said.

At least one Canadian medical school has incorporated the issue of conscientious objection to assisted suicide into its admission process. One applicant was asked by an actor to help them commit suicide. When the student recoiled from this, the actor continued to press until finally the student assented.

Some are reportedly advocating that conscientious objectors to assisted suicide should not be allowed in medical school.
 

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