Ladies in white - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Mon, 28 May 2012 04:40:05 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg Ladies in white - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 Cuban church: Ladies in White they are now a political group https://cathnews.co.nz/2012/05/28/cuban-church-ladies-in-white-they-are-now-a-political-group/ Mon, 28 May 2012 09:15:28 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=26308 A Cuban Catholic Church official told the Ladies in White on Friday they are no longer a humanitarian group and that the government is unlikely to let them go to the Vatican even if Pope Benedict XVI grants them an audience, spokeswoman Berta Soler said. The lay spokesman for Cardinal Jaime Ortega, meanwhile, told a Read more

Cuban church: Ladies in White they are now a political group... Read more]]> A Cuban Catholic Church official told the Ladies in White on Friday they are no longer a humanitarian group and that the government is unlikely to let them go to the Vatican even if Pope Benedict XVI grants them an audience, spokeswoman Berta Soler said.

The lay spokesman for Cardinal Jaime Ortega, meanwhile, told a conference in California that the government must guarantee the rights of the island's "political, cultural or religious" minorities and dissidents must abandon "verbal violence." Continue reading

Cuban church: Ladies in White they are now a political group]]> 26308 Cuba: New wave of repression https://cathnews.co.nz/2012/04/13/cuba-new-wave-of-repression/ Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:30:35 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=22974

Four days after Pope Benedict left Cuba, 43 dissidents have been detained in Cuba in a new wave of repression. Former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer and his wife, Belkis Cantillo, a member of the Women in White, were among those arrested. "We have been able to confirm that 43 dissidents have been detained - Read more

Cuba: New wave of repression... Read more]]> Four days after Pope Benedict left Cuba, 43 dissidents have been detained in Cuba in a new wave of repression.

Former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer and his wife, Belkis Cantillo, a member of the Women in White, were among those arrested.

"We have been able to confirm that 43 dissidents have been detained - 10 women and 33 men - during the wave of repression on Monday in Santiago de Cuba, and all remain under arrest," Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights said on April 4.

He said that most of them belong to the Patriotic Union of Cuba, a dissident movement that supports a peaceful transition to democracy.

In a statement sent to CNA on April 4, the Patriotic Union of Cuba said the repression began on Monday morning, when ten activists in the town of El Caney "gathered at the home of coordinator Guillermo Cobas to peacefully protest" the incarceration of Andres Carrion Alvares, Rogelio Tabio Lopez and Bismark Mustelier Galan.

Sources

Cuba: New wave of repression]]> 22974 Cuba: Good Friday holiday - few attend Church https://cathnews.co.nz/2012/04/10/cuba-good-friday-holiday-few-attend-church/ Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:33:32 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=22632

As bells rang throughout Havana, Cuba, on Good Friday, only around 100 attended the city's main cathedral where Cardinal Jamie Ortega presided at the ceremony. Authorities also allowed Cardinal Jamie Ortega to transmit the Good Friday service on State Television. It is the first time in 50 years Cubans were granted a public holiday on Read more

Cuba: Good Friday holiday - few attend Church... Read more]]> As bells rang throughout Havana, Cuba, on Good Friday, only around 100 attended the city's main cathedral where Cardinal Jamie Ortega presided at the ceremony.

Authorities also allowed Cardinal Jamie Ortega to transmit the Good Friday service on State Television.

It is the first time in 50 years Cubans were granted a public holiday on Good Friday, and this one-time exemption is a direct response to the request of Pope Benedict and his "transcendental visit" to Cuba.

"I'm not Catholic, but I respect them," said Gladys Ocampo, among Cuban workers who got the day off. "I'm happy to have a holiday I wasn't counting on."

Those placing more emphasis on the Good Friday service were members of the 'Ladies in White', the country's most prominent dissident group, who are seeking the release of political prisoners.

"We are here to ask God to enlighten us, to protect us... we will continue this peaceful struggle we have begun for the freedom of our loved ones but also for a new Cuba," the group's leader, Berta Soler, told reporters.

Elsewhere in Cuba numbers attending the Good Friday service were higher than at the Cathedral, reports the West Australian.

Magno Felipe Mitjans, a lay worker who described himself as "revolutionary, Christian and Catholic," said at his parish of San Juan de Letran, "We have received more people, including in comparison with other Good Fridays."

The Cuban government ended religious holidays in the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro into power, however in 1998, and at the request of the visiting then pope, John Paul II, Fidel Castro reinstated Christmas as a public holiday.

Sources

Cuba: Good Friday holiday - few attend Church]]> 22632