Pope Francis meets with former Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana, Cuba, on September 20, 2015. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Alex Castro-Castro Family/Handout via Reuters
*Editors: This photo may only be republished with RNS-POPE-FIDEL, originally transmitted on September 21, 2015.

Sidebar from Comments on You Tube:

Hi guys. I have an interesting lead for you: Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is apparently fond of Pope Francis because his “Jesuit friends” think the pope is “the real deal” on climate issues. http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/10/13/podesta-emails-pope-is-the-real-deal-on-climate The word Podesta goes way way back with the Vatican: ” Podestàs were first more widely appointed by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa when he began to assert the rights that his Imperial position gave him over the cities of northern Italy; at the second imperial diet at Roncaglia, November 1158, Frederick appointed in several major cities imperial podestàs “as if having imperial power in that place” . . . The Fascist regime created its own version of the podestà figure. In February 1926, Mussolini’s Senate issued a decree which suspended elected local government, replacing it with an authoritarian figure appointed by the National Fascist Party, designated “podestà” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta

Castro’s Connection with Jesuitism

Since the USA restored diplomatic relations with Cuba in July 2015 and Pope Francis visited the Caribbean island last September, Cuba is fast becoming a popular holiday destination. But some people might be unaware that its controversial former president, Fidel Castro – who celebrated his 90th birthday last week – was educated by the Jesuits.

Fidel Castro wasn’t the best student. Known for being a troublemaker, he was taught in two other schools before being sent to study under the Jesuits – first in the city of Santiago, and then in the famed Colegio de Belen in the capital, Havana, where he met a mentor who influenced his attitude for life.

Amando Llorente SJ was born in Spain on August 24th 1918, and followed his older brother, already a Jesuit missionary, into the Jesuit Order. He was a 24-year-old Jesuit novice when he was sent to Cuba in 1942 to finish his formation. Whilst he was a teacher at the preparatory school, he met the rebellious Fidel Castro, who excelled under his tutelage.

“The Jesuit brothers didn’t even earn a wage for teaching classes, they tried to be examples of modesty and honesty,” says Dolores Guerra, a researcher at the government-run Cuban History Institute.

At the end of his course in 1944, Castro had turned his attitude around and was even awarded a prize for discipline.

In 1945, the priest wrote in the school yearbook: “Fidel Castro, has the makings of a hero, the history of his motherland will have to speak about him.¨

He left Cuba to continue his Theology studies at the Pontifical University of Comillas in Madrid and Heythrop College in London, before being ordained a priest on the 8th September 1948. He was reassigned to Cuba in 1950 as director of a retreat house, and was still in contact with Fidel as the political landscape of Cuba changed around them. Llorente says of this time;

“He confessed to me that he had lost the faith, and I responded to him: ‘Fidel, one thing is to lose your faith and another thing is to lose your dignity.”

This continuing relationship between political activist and priest didn’t stop Castro expelling the Society of Jesus from Cuba in 1961, and Llorente resettled in Miami where he founded a branch of the Agrupacion Catolica Universitaria, a Christian community for men who are university graduates and professionals, based on Jesuit formation principles.

Fr. Llorente died in the US on 28th April 2010 at the age of 91. Cardinal Sean O’Malley wrote in memory that Llorente “gave more retreats in one year than the majority of Jesuits give in their lifetime”.

Image from the Catholic News Agency article Sep 20, 2015.

Political Activist and Priest – Fidel Castro and His Jesuit Mentor …

This is from Cuba’s official website on itself.  http://www.cubaheritage.com.  The specific web page below is the official
Cuba biography of Fidel Castro.  Its specific URL is http://cubaheritage.com/subs.asp?sID=16&cID=3

Notice carefully from the article below:

1) Fidel Castro attended three Jesuit institutions.  College Lasalle and
Colegio Dolores.  “Colegio” in Spanish is a high school or junior college.

2)  He then attended a Jesuit university for “preparatory”
studies–obviously, what we would call a “general studies” program–at
Colegio Belen.  I say, “general studies,” because, after he matriculated
from there, he went to law school.

3) Upon graduating from law school he joined the Orthodox or Christian
Democrat party.  My European readers will instantly recognize that this is
the Roman Catholic Party.  The first Christian Democrat party was begun in
Italy under Pius XI in the 1920’s.  Pius XI later disbanded that party, to
put his full support behind Benito Mussolini and his Fascists.  The leader
of the Christian Democrat party was then forced into exile, though he and
Pope XI remained on good speaking terms.  It was in London that this leader
met a fellow exile–Avro Manhattan.

Returning to Fidel Castro: Castro was obviously fully working for the
Jesuits when he joined the Christian Democrat party as a young lawyer.  Not
only that: by the time of the Cuban revolution in 1958-59, the Jesuits in
Latin America were going fully Marxist-Leninist in ideology, as both Avro
Manhattan and a former Jesuit priest, Malachi Martin, well document.
Malachi Martin documents how that, in 1963, the Jesuits became fanatic,
left-wing Communists, under Pedro Arrupe, himself a Marxist, and a great
advocate of Fidel Castro.  Martin documents in his book: “The Jesuits and
the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church” how the Jesuits proceeded to
foment Communist revolutions throughout Latin America and Africa, with
Castro’s aid.

Malachi Martin was himself a Jesuit, but left the Jesuits in 1964, after,
while working in the Vatican, he became aware of the fact that the Jesuits,
and many high-ranking cardinals, had held a Black Mass in the Vatican.  (St
Paul’s Cathedral.)  During this Black Mass, these cardinals and other
Jesuits “installed” Lucifer as head of the Church of Rome.  It was Malachi
Martin’s belief that many of the Roman clergy at that time began practicing
child molestation as part of their Satanic rites of worship.

That may sound a little “cranky”–but keep in mind that Malachi Martin went
on to work as an advisor for two more Popes, though, no longer as a Jesuit.
He did textual work on the Dead Sea scrolls–was an authority on the
Semitic languages.  (I have a picture of Malachi Martin sitting between
Pope John Paul I, the murdered Pope, and the Pope’s assistant, Diego
Lorenzi.  That picture was taken in 1978, long after Martin had left the
Jesuits.  The picture is in David Yallop’s excellent expose of the murder
of John Paul I and the Vatican Bank scandal, called “In God’s Name.”  I
highly recommend that book.)

Back to Castro and Communist Cuba: the “Calvary Contender,” an independent
online Baptist periodical, reports that Henry Morris, the writer of the
Genesis Flood, says that the Pope recently visited Cuba.  He and Castro
shared the same podium.  Pope John Paul II sounded as Communist as Castro.

Here is a blurb from the Calvary Contender:

“POPE & CASTRO SOUND ALIKE ON SOCIALISM– Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul
II met last Nov. Cuba is overwhelmingly Catholic. Catholics are allowed to
join its officially atheist Communist Party. The Pope sounds very
Castro-esque in his frequent condemnations of capitalism, consumerism and
the suffering of the poor (11/19 HT). He told the Nov. UN World Food Summit
that the imbalance between the rich and poor (“the haves and have-nots”?)
cannot be tolerated. ”

That link is at http://home.hiwaay.net/~contendr/1-1-97.html.

Notice above very carefully:

1) Cuba is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic.

2) Roman Catholics are allowed to join the atheist Communist Party.

3) Fidel Castro himself is a graduate of several Jesuit institutions, and
is in good standing with the Pope.

4) He was a member of the Roman Catholic Christian Democrat party before
starting his Marxist/Leninist revolution.

Albert Rivera, the former Jesuit priest who became a Protestant preacher,
said that Castro is a fourth-degree, professed Jesuit.  The circumstantial
evidence strongly corroborates that statement.

Here is Castro’s official biography from CubaHeritage.com.