Cuban to be new Pope
Julian | 03.04.2005 10:41
Word from Rome is that the Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Archbishop of Havana is the front runner as new Pope. Italian television is calling him "Pope in waiting" and the Mondo Times in the US is calling him a "near certainty".
Ortega has trod a delicate path in his position as head of the Cuban Church, the Cuban government bans all religion but despite that over 80% of Cubans are thought to be practising Catholics. Ortega spent a year in one of Castro's forced labour camps for his preaching on human right issues and calls for religious freedom and was known to be close to John Paul II who himself fought the Nazis in his youth and saw his homeland rise up against the horrors of Communism in later life.
Although the appointment of Ortega will prove an embaresment to Castro it is not thought he will be able to stop Ortega traveling to Rome to accept the position.
Ortega has trod a delicate path in his position as head of the Cuban Church, the Cuban government bans all religion but despite that over 80% of Cubans are thought to be practising Catholics. Ortega spent a year in one of Castro's forced labour camps for his preaching on human right issues and calls for religious freedom and was known to be close to John Paul II who himself fought the Nazis in his youth and saw his homeland rise up against the horrors of Communism in later life.
Although the appointment of Ortega will prove an embaresment to Castro it is not thought he will be able to stop Ortega traveling to Rome to accept the position.
Julian
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