The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-02-13
JOSEPH BREIG-
Some Facts
About Cuba

w. WI
l am not impressed by the shocked reaction of
editorial writer's to the executions in Cuba following
the overthrow of the numerous Batlsta govern
ment.
For one thing, these journalists wrote in haste,
without waiting for the fuller information that GER
talnly would have given them second thoughts.
For another, they do not seem to grasp firmly
the truth that peace is the work of Justice, and that
sent1mentallSm is not religion.
Further, they do not yet realize that it is high
time to call a stern halt to the plundering Of Latin
American nations by successive relationships.
Finally, they do not see that national and inter-
national thugs will continue to fill the world with
torture and terror until they learn that they cannot do
so without facing an accounting.
ONE NEWSPAPER denounced revolutionary
leader Fldel Castro for violating the Latin American
tradition" that to the victor belong the spoils, but the
vanqulshed must always be allowed to find asylum in
some other country.
This is simply attacking Castro for not being
immoral. He was eminentIy right, not wrong, for refus.
Ing Spolls while insisting that malefactors in places of
power be brought to justice.
Dale Francis, editor of the Lone Star Catholic and
correspondent for Our Sunday Visitor, is one news
man who went to Cuba to get the facts about the revo-
luton and the executions.
Francis knows Cuba. He spent a couple of years
there with his wife, Barbara, assisting missionaries in
their work among the Cuban poor.
lave KNOWN Dale Francis for years. | have
yet to meet a man more patient, more deliberate, more
kindly, or slower to Jump to conclusions.
Francis cabled from Cuba the story of what hap
pened to five young men of Catholic Action, whom he
had met when they gave religious instructions in a
Cuban village.
They were arrested by Batista agents after Christ
mas. Following the overthrow of the Batista regime,
their bodies were found by a priest searching through
a pile of 60 bodies.
They had been shot first in the arms Francis
wrote, mot once but many times, rising up from their
wrists. Bullets tore through their booles in non-vital
places-the ears, the chin, the cheeks. They had been
Slashed with knives In a manner too horrible to detail"
ARCHBISHOP Enrique Perez Serantes of Santi-
ago told Francis that in his province alone, Batista
agents murdered more than 5000 persons. Through
out Cuba. the victims numbered at very least 20.nJ0.
These were people who died horribly because they
spoke or acted in defense of elementary human rights
while Batista and his followers lived in luxury, and
piled up huge fortunes out OF paVOffS from gambling
casinos-some of the operators of which, to Americas
shame, were Americans.
Auxiliary Bishop Alfredo Muller of Havana told
American neWsmen that although he does not usually
favor capital punishment, and the Church is always
inclined to forgive, in this case the death penalty was
justified.
BISHOP ALBERTO MARTIN of Matanzas Province
said, THE position of my Church in Matanzas Province
is that the trials and executions are fully justified. In
some cases., the people would have been justified if
they had taken justice into their own hands and had
killed known criminals without waiting for a trial"
Three ministers in charge of the Protestant semi
nary IN Matanzas sent kilograms to President Eisen-
hover and Congress, upholding the Castro revolution
and calling for a halt to American criticism of the
executions.
DR.. Francisco Muller, director of the Havana
morgue, said that Batista agents, during Batista's
reign, dumped the beaten or bullet-ridden bodies Of
600 youths at the morgue's door.
Ivory tower protests against swift punishment for
such crimes, 1t seems to me, come with i'll grace from
newspapers which went into paroxysms of moral indig.
nation over a gift vicuna coat, and received politely
a man like Anastas Mikoyan only two years after the
Soviet %butchery of the Hungarian people.