It was good to hear the Pope calling for the end to the US embargo on Cuba. "The present hour urgently demands that in personal, national and international co-existence we reject immovable positions and unilateral viewpoints which tend to make understanding more difficult and efforts at cooperation ineffective," he said. President Obama has disappointed on many issues, not least the continued use of Guantanamo Bay on Cuba to detain prisoners without trial, and maintaining the marginalisation and isolation of Cuba for idealogical reasons. The island republic is clearly no longer a threat. The US can hardly justify the embargo by citing Cuba's poor human rights record when, on that same island, it does the same.
On the subject of the internal life of the Church, he made a few surprising but welcome remarks, the most notable of which was that bishops should correct improper the attitudes of some priests. “It is not right that [the laity] should feel treated as if they hardly count in the Church,” he said. “It is important for pastors to ensure a spirit of communion reigns among priests, religious and the lay faithful, and sterile divisions, criticism and unhealthy mistrust are avoided.” Though welcome, it's hard to understand such an appeal coming from a pontiff whose attitude to priesthood appears to foster clericalism.
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