I, the priest Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in the town of Taguayabon, Cuba, find myself in the painful and distressing need to condemn before the world the manipulation and blackmail of the so-called Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba of myself, my family and ministries; at least so that they do not occur with impunity.
Without internet access in previous weeks I was able to publish my full complaint through the blog Religion in Revolution. After hours of publication, Granma responded with an article by Dalia González Delgado — “Is there religious freedom in Cuba?” — on April 30. Now I am publishing each complaint separately and in different posts and I welcome the VII Congress of the Latin American Church Council in Havana:
– From mid-2009 the Religious Affairs Office has been harassing the leaders of the Western Cuba Baptist Convention to take action against my person and ministries. These leaders are constantly called to the Office for scolding and pressures not to interfere in my pastoral ministry, nor in the decisions as an autonomous church that is ours, but that is associated with the Baptist Convention, with its own doctrine and ecclesiastical practice of our churches, in this Political Bureau of the Central Committee trying to interfere at all costs violating our fundamental principle of church-state separation.
16 May 2013
