Church in Cuba needs more room for action, lay magazine asserts

Havana, Cuba, Feb 23, 2009 / 20:42 pm

The magazine Espacio Laical of the Archdiocesan Council of Laity of Havana, has repeated the request by the Church in Cuba that it have more room for action to be able to carry out its work of evangelization and thus contribute to the building of a “Cuban Homeland.”

 

In an editorial, the magazine said the Church needs to be given more room to “help and bring dignity to the poor, to the infirm, to the imprisoned, as well as to inculturate her message of love and trust, responsibility and communion.”

 

While some progress has been made, the magazine noted, the Church still does not have access to important instruments for this mission, such as the media, education and culture.

 

Building the “Cuban Homeland” refers to making Cuba into “one great family, whose members have their differences but recognize and accept a bond that united them: the love for what is theirs that comes from a shared history,” the editorial said.

 

For this reason, the magazine asserted, all opinions should be “heard and considered, and the people should be given an ever greater and more effective chance to determine what changes are necessary and what the tempo should be for bringing them about.”

 

“Today Cuba enjoys a very favorable international context,” the magazine argued, and there are “a sufficient number of Cubans who with their different political and ideological positions” can strengthen “a society that seeks to advance on the basis of encounter and dialogue.”