Prophetic Intelligence Briefings
Fidel Castro to Rejoin the Catholic Church? · February 27, 2012
The aged and ailing Fidel Castro is rumored to be preparing to rejoin the Catholic Church when Benedict XVI visits Cuba. La Repubblica and La Stampa reported that his daughter Alina Fernández, a devout Catholic, and who enjoys close contact with the church hierarchy, says that the atheist Cuban dictator wants to get closer to God.
“Relations between religion and politics have long been something of an anomaly in Cuba,” says Riordan Roett, a Latin America scholar at Johns Hopkins. “But conversion and absolution? That’s pretty farfetched.” Nor does Brazil’s Frei Betto, a Franciscan friar and close friend of Castro’s, pay much heed to the suggestion that the Cuban revolutionary is ready to bow his head. “In my opinion, he’s an agnostic,” says Betto, whose series of interviews with Castro in the early 80s led to a bestselling book, Fidel and Religion.
Castro has done many things throughout his career as strongman of Cuba against religion, including cancelling Christmas and forcing churches to worship in secret. “Whether Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Pentecostal, or follower of the Afro-Cuban spirit religion Santeria, the island’s faithful had to worship on the sly or forget about God altogether if they wished to serve flag and party.”
It remains to be seen what happens to Castro before he dies. But the Catholic Church is always interested in national leaders who want to become Catholic, and perhaps “atone for their sins.” Perhaps changes are coming to this once oppressive Communist regime.
“And all the world wondered after the Beast,” Revelation 13:3.
Castro May Rejoin Catholic Church, Say Rumors in the Italian Press
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