Wow, some “achievement,” imagine that, Cubans can now celebrate Good Friday; that and some money may actually put rice and beans on the table. Too bad the people have no money. But wait, even with money they also wouldn’t have rice and beans as the market shelves are bare. Such are the “benefits” of communism. TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Reuters
Reuters – Sat, Mar 31, 2012
HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba has declared next week’s Good Friday a holiday following a request from Pope Benedict during his visit to the island, state media said on Saturday.
The communist government will decide later whether to make Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate Christ’s death, a permanent holiday, it said.
Benedict requested the holiday – celebrated on April 6 this year – as part of Easter celebrations during a meeting with President Raul Castro in Havana on Tuesday, the Vatican said.
Castro’s brother, Fidel, ended religious holidays after leading Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution, though he did reinstate Christmas to honor a request by Pope John Paul during a visit in 1998 – a trip that marked an upturn in relations between Cuba and the Church.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi welcomed the decision by Cuba as a “very positive sign”.
“The Holy See hopes that this will encourage participation in religious celebrations and in happy Easter festivities and that in future, the visit of the Holy Father will continue to bear the desired fruit to the benefit of the Church and all Cubans,” he said in a statement.
Benedict, whose three day “transcendental visit” to Cuba followed a stop in Mexico, urged change on the island and asked that the Church be able to do more in a time of potentially painful transition.
Raul Castro, who succeeded his older brother as president in 2008, has undertaken economic reforms that will include the slashing of one million jobs from government payrolls.
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta, additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Rome; Editing by Jeff Franks and Sandra Maler)
This is a great thing for the Cuban people as it will lead them to eventually stop eating whatever little meat they eat on Fridays and reap the health benefits of that. Ironically, The GhostRider was to leave today as part of a group of three on a paid flight to Cuba but the numbers crunching didn’t work out and only a party of one boarded that flight. The American Embargo failed to topple the Castro regime and now, we’ll never know what changes the GhostRider Charm may have brought on from the visit.
I leave your readers with a little musical interlude – a “Merengue” by the great Cuban quintet, Habana Sax. Interestingly enough, although many think of the Merengue as Cuban music, it is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic having been created by Ñico Lora, a Dominican of Spanish descent, in the 1920s and then becoming the country’s national music and dance style.
Music, like consciousness, can transcend cultures and barriers.
-GhostRider Wisdom…is there any other!