55: The Color Purple

The top hierarchy of our Catholic Church functions as a top Cuban government ministry. For half a century their presence has not been allowed in the press or on national television. Their convents and parish publications and priests and processions and money and all kinds of property were snatched away. Christmas was officially canceled. Their schools became barracks, like Villa Marista, the current headquarters of State Security. But Cuban Cardinal in Chief Jaime Ortega y Alamino has reached a settlement with that very despotic power in perpetuity. The Cardinal was an accomplice to dozens of forced deportations in 2010 and hundreds of arrests during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in 2013. The Cardinal is one of the many who silenced the uninvestigated crimes against Laura Pollán in 2011 and Oswaldo Payá in 2012. The official church virtually drove out the two Catholic dissident leaders and ceased to pay attention to their peaceful projects and reports so that they were both so vulnerable to extrajudicial judgments.

Still, the Cardinal smiles. There is not one of his photos in which he is not smiling beatifically, while he calls human rights activists “criminals” and offends Berta Soler, the new leader of the Ladies in White, calling her uneducated to her face. That angelic laugh is enough to show who he really is. The Cuban Cardinal smiles because he knows very well what he is doing.