María del Carmen Hernández Carús, mother of Leticia Martínez Hernández, head of Communication for the Cuban Presidency, posted on social media a text that claims to be a Christian reflection but operates as a political maneuver.
The mother of the faithful Leticia did not condemn the repression, did not question the trial against Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente (Anna Bensi on social media) and her mother did not stop to consider the arbitrariness of a state that punishes two women for reporting the intimidation of an officer, but instead dedicated lengthy paragraphs to casting doubt on the churches, pastors, and believers who showed solidarity with them.
His text opens with a false neutrality: "I'm not going to comment on the young woman," he says. Nor, he assures, will he talk "about the trial, or whether a crime was committed, or whether justice is served." However, that supposed silence doesn't last long.
Hernández Carús does not comment on the abuse of power; instead, he speaks out against those who report it. He does not directly address the main issue, yet he grants himself moral authority to question the consistency of the religious individuals who sought justice.
There is the maneuver: to shift the focus. The matter stops being about a young woman and her mother subjected to a criminal process —initiated by the institutions of a totalitarian state— for exercising their right to express themselves, and becomes about the supposed "incoherence" of the churches.
The victim disappears. The repressive State does too. In its place appears the old excuse of the ruling party: the blockade, the sanctions, the United States, the sick children, the external threats. All together, all mixed, all used as a smokescreen to evade a fundamental question: why does the Cuban regime persecute and condemn two citizens who publicly defended themselves against the pressure from State Security?
Hernández Carús criticizes the churches for not speaking out, as she claims, with the same strength against other sufferings. However, the Bible she invokes does not state that one should remain silent in the face of a specific injustice just because there are other injustices in the world. On the contrary: «Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves», says Proverbs.
Solidarity with Anna Bensi and her mother is not a Christian inconsistency. Inconsistency is using religious language to demand selective silence in the face of the violence of power.
The post reaches its most revealing point when Hernández Carús questions the arrested pastor, known as the "Herald of Christ." He claims to have seen him resist, ask for the arrest to be filmed, and then he asserts that he remembered Jesus.
The comparison is obscenely manipulative and twisted: it invokes Christ not to challenge those who arrest, persecute, or condemn, but to suggest that the persecuted should docilely accept the abuse.
Hernández Carús cites Jesus before Pilate, but seems to forget who Pilate was in that scene: the representative of political power who, even knowing he was facing an innocent man, ultimately delivered him up. Pilate washed his hands. She does something similar: she claims not to judge the case, but ends up pointing fingers at those who accompany the victims.
His reading of John 19 attempts to turn Jesus' meekness into obedience to any state abuse. However, Christianity did not originate as a doctrine of submission to power. The apostles responded to the authorities: "We must obey God rather than men". The biblical tradition is full of prophets who denounce the oppressor, not pious officials demanding composure from the oppressed.
What seems to bother Hernández Carús is not the injustice itself, but the existence of individuals willing to call it by name. That is why he accuses of selectivity. That is why he introduces the blockade. That is why he invokes other pains of Cuba, not to demand freedoms, but to downplay the specific persecution against Anna Bensi and her mother.
That logic does not seek coherence. It seeks paralysis.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus does not praise the one who walks by looking for doctrinal excuses. He praises the one who stops to help the injured. Hernández Carús's publication does not stop to address the wounds of Anna Bensi and her mother. It stops to examine whether those who assist them are consistent enough with the official narrative. It is not next to the injured on the road; it is questioning the Samaritan.
The problem is not that Hernández Carús cites the Bible. The problem is the purpose of the citation. He uses it to obscure an injustice, not to illuminate it. To reprimand the victims and their supporters, not to question the power that oppresses them. To wrap a practical defense of the regime in Christian language.
It is also striking how they exude a tone of moral superiority. From their closeness to the official ecosystem, Hernández Carús feels entitled to lecture those who stand on the side of the persecuted about Christianity. It is a scene of hard-to-mask hypocrisy: a defender of totalitarian power judging the faith of those who support the victims of repression.
“You will know them by their fruits,” says the Gospel. The political outcome of its publication is evident: it diminishes the legitimacy of solidarity with Anna Bensi and her mother, introduces the worn arguments of official propaganda, transforms faith into obedience, and shifts the debate from state violence to the supposed incoherence of those who denounce it.
The maneuver is not new, but it is deeply immoral. It involves demanding moral accountability from the victim and those who support them, while simultaneously absolving the regime that persecutes, surveils, arrests, and condemns. It consists of invoking Christ while politically aligning with Pilate.
Hernández Carús did not make a Christian reflection on justice. He used Christianity as a pretext to defend, indirectly, the power that denies it and manipulates it at will.
Related videos:
Filed under: