Catholics have long held the use of their church as places of refuge and sanctuary. While it might not seem to have as great a place in Western society in our post-Christian era as it did in previous generations, the Catholic Church still takes the role of sanctuary seriously.
But, it seems the Cuban government, like many Catholic bloggers who complained about the New Sanctuary Movement or the way Belgian Bishops opened up their churches to Arab immigrants, does not like this tradition and shows no respect for it, as can be seen by this recent encounter in the church of Santa Teresita. This Reuters article describes the terrible situation quite well:
Plainclothes police kicked their way into a Roman Catholic church in eastern Cuba, beat and used pepper spray on a group of dissidents, church officials and rights activists said on Wednesday.
Hopefully parishes will remain faithful and fight hard to keep and preserve the right of sanctuary, no matter how difficult this might be in the near future, and no matter how many Catholics ridicule this holy tradition.
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