"Rescue from forgetfulness our martyrs, victims of communism!"


Miami Sept. 27, 1999 (CubDest)- Representatives of the most important Cuban exile organizations have just subscribed an open letter to H.H. John Paul II, in which they ask him to "rescue from forgetfulness" "those young people that from the first days of the sinister communist revolution, died executed by firing squads while crying out loud 'Long Live Christ the King, Down With Communism'!"
The leaders of the exile community state "the certainty that the martyrdom of those lay catholic Cuban faithfuls, is of no less value than those of Christians who died in the roman Coliseum, or of the Mexican martyrs at the beginning of the XX Century or of the martyrs from the Spanish civil war, many of whom H.H. John Paul II have beatified." Among the signatories, we find Cuban-American U.S. Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ex-political prisoners such as the poet Armando Valladares, and the diplomat Andrés Vargas Gómez, and the presidents of influential entities in exile such as Unidad Cubana and the Cuban-American National Foundation. The signatures gathered will be taken in the near future to Rome.
In the message published on the main page of Diario Las Américas, of Miami, the just mentioned representatives add; "How much we would desire that the Church initiates the canonization process of our heroes of the Faith, so that we could have them as official and celestial mediators in favor of our beloved agonizing Homeland. How much we would desire also, that during the Jubilee 2000, in which the Church is contemplating a remembrance to the catholic martyrs, a mention would be included about our Cuban martyrs. At your feet we faithfully request and exclaim 'Holy Father, rescue from forgetfulness the Cuban martyrs, victims of communism.!' "
"To God's ears, your words could resound like trumpets that could contribute in a decisive way to destroy completely, until they are converted to dust, the last walls of Jericho, contemporarily built by the satanic communist scourge (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris), accelerating as such, the moment previewed by Our Lady of Fatima, and the triumph of her Immaculate Heart," concludes the document.
Sergio F. de Paz and Dr. Enrique J. Cantón, from the Commission of Studies for the Freedom of Cuba, an entity that coordinated this initiative, manifested in a press conference, that those words from the Pope, "might constitute without any doubt, a factor of perseverance to all those brothers and sisters in the faith, living martyrs, presently
being persecuted not only in Cuba but also in China, Vietnam, North Korea, and in Colombia, where cruel Marxist guerrillas persecute, kidnap and assassin catholic faithfuls, among such victims, the bishop of Arauca, Msgr. Emilio Jesús Jaramillo, killed "in odium fidei" in 1989.

To read the complete text of the letter and the list of signatories,
click in http://www.cubdest.org/