"Pope calls for patience in fight to bring freedom to communist Cuba"

Pope calls for patience in fight to bring freedom to communist Cuba
ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT TO MEXICO (CNS) -- En route to Latin America for his second papal visit to the region, Pope Benedict XVI called for patience with the Catholic Church's effort to promote freedom in communist Cuba, and criticized Catholics who participate in illegal drug trade or who ignore their moral responsibilities to seek social justice. The pope, flying to Mexico March 23, followed his usual practice of taking a few preselected questions from reporters on the papal plane. Responding to a question about human rights in Cuba, where he will arrive March 26, and where opposition leaders have been arrested after publicly appealing for a meeting with him, Pope Benedict said that the "church is always on the side of freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion. Marxist ideology as it was conceived no longer responds to the truth today, we can no longer respond this way to construct a society," the pope said. But the pope said that the "path of collaboration and constructive dialogue," which his predecessor Blessed John Paul II initiated with the communist regime, "is long and demands patience. We want to help in the spirit of dialogue to avoid the trauma and to help move toward a fraternal and just society" in Cuba, he said.


Patience? We have been waiting for 53 years!!! If the Cuban Catholic Church is on the side of FREEDOM, why have ALL the disidents and the Ladies in White being rounded up and prohibited from attending the Papel activities?