The rejection of the U.S. blockade is a Christian imperative

HAVANA, Cuba, October 25, 2006

During the second gathering of the Cuban Pastoral Forum, which took place at the Episcopal Taxi Heathrow Airport Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the capital city of Havana, the Reverend Rafael Columbié expressed that it is submission and surrender to a master sought to be pleased and not love, that has moved the Czechoslovakian Ecumenical Council to make false statements and to want to intervene in Cuban internal affairs.

For Reinerio Arce, Dean of the Evangelical Seminary of Matanzas, such a disrepectful attitude contrasts with that of other churches that have given their support without any kind of interference. Arce also thanked the World Council of Churches (WCC) for its accompaniment.

Arce stated that, “Moreover, even though it is this situation that has convened us, what is most essential is the rejecting of the blockade imposed on our people and which has brought them suffering and death for more than four decades. It is a Christian imperative to be opposed to the use of economic sanctions, not only against our country but against any country in the world, because such sanctions go against the basics of Christian ethics.” 

Raúl Suárez, Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center, pointed out that Klubalova’s attitude constitutes an adherence to the aggressive policies toward Cuba of the United States. The Reverend Odén Marichal disclosed also that the Czechoslovakian Republic’s Ecumenical Council is in actual fact what is being controlled by its government, not before but now, as is proven by a report of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Likewise, Marichal demonstrated the ties between the North American embassy, the government and the council of the Czechoslovakian Republic referred to, by also using CIA documents. Therefore, assured Marichal, Klubalova is simply defending a project of the United States and it is in Czechoslovakia where church-state relations are not moving along well.  

The Cuban ecumenical and ecclesiastical movement gave its response to this “flagrant violation of religious liberty” (as Samuel Kobia, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches has described it), from biblical, theological, pastoral and citizen’s perspectives.