In the Closet of the Vatican

by Frédéric Martel

  ‘I would say that Cardinal Ortega is defending the regime. He never criticizes their human rights record or the political situation. And when the pope came to Havana, Francis criticized the Mexican and the American regimes on the question of immigration, but he never said anything about the total absence of press freedom, freedom of association, freedom of thought in Cuba,’ Antonio Rodiles explained when I interviewed him four times at his home in Havana.

  On the other hand, Bertha Soler, whom I also interviewed, is more indulgent about Jaime Ortega’s record: her husband, Angel Moya Acosta, a political opponent whom I met with her, was freed after eight years in jail, like hundreds of other dissidents, thanks to an agreement that the cardinal negotiated between the Cuban regime, the Spanish government and the Catholic Church.

  Balance was inevitably difficult to maintain between, on the right, Ortega, the anti-communist hard line of John Paul II and Cardinal Angelo Sodano – to whom he is close – and the need for compromise, on the left, with the Castro brothers. Particularly when, in the early 1980s, Fidel developed an enthusiasm for liberation theology: the leader maximo read Gustavo Gutiérrez and Leonardo Boff and published a book of interviews with Frei Betto about religion. Also, as a versatile diplomat, Ortega began moderately denouncing, at the same time, the excesses of capitalism and of communism. In place of liberation theology, endorsed by Castro but fought against everywhere in Latin America by John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger, he subtly advocated a ‘theology of reconciliation’ between Cubans.

  ‘In his youth, Ortega was close to liberation theology, but he moved away from it,’ I am told by Tony Ramos, a pastor of Cuban origin in Miami who knew Ortega in Havana when he was 18, and was at one point in the same seminary as the future cardinal.

  Ramos adds, in a sibylline phrase (and wishing to keep the rest of our conversation off the record): ‘Ortega has always lived in conflict, like many priests.’

  It is certain, as several contacts I interviewed in Havana observed, that the regime was perfectly aware of the relationship, the encounters, the travels, the private life, the sexual morality – whatever it might be – of Jaime Ortega. Given his role in the hierarchy, and his frequent connections with the Vatican, it is clear that the cardinal was under 24-hour surveillance by the Cuban political police. One of its specialities is to compromise sensitive personalities by filming them in flagrante, at home or in hotels.

  ‘Cardinal Ortega is a puppet who is completely in the power of the Castro regime. He is in the hands of Raúl Castro. Let’s not forget that Cuba is the most monitored society in the world,’ Michael Putney, one of the most respected journalists in Florida, tells me when I interview him at the offices of WPLG Local 10 in northern Miami.

  Was Ortega blackmailed, as some suggest? Was he himself, or his entourage, so vulnerable that they didn’t have any room for manoeuvre to criticize the regime? One of the best Anglo-Saxon specialists in Cuban intelligence tells me over lunch in Paris that Cardinal Ortega and his entourage were placed under direct surveillance by Alejandro Castro Espín, the son of the former president Raúl Castro. The unofficial head of the Cuban secret services is even said over the years to have drawn up a complete dossier, using very sophisticated surveillance technology, on the leaders of the Catholic Church in Cuba, and Jaime Ortega in particular. In other words, Ortega is ‘atendido’, protected at a very high level. A secretive person, Alejandro Castro Espín occupies the role of coordinator of the defence council and national security, which covers all of Cuban intelligence and counter-espionage: he is said to be Cardinal Ortega’s liaison officer. This would involve looking into all exchanges with the Vatican, and while there are hardly any photographs of him (we know that he lost an eye while fighting in Angola), he has recently appeared in one picture, in the company of his Father Raúl, standing next to Pope Francis.

  ‘The Castro regime has a long history of compromises of sensitive individuals and opponents to the regime, based on their sexuality. And homosexuality is one of the most powerful blackmailing tools when you are in the closet, particularly if you are a priest or a bishop,’ the same source tells me. (This information coincides with the startling revelations about the wire-taps and sexual blackmail of the regime, by Fidel Castro’s personal bodyguard, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Reinaldo Sánchez, in his book The Hidden Life of Fidel Castro, published after his exile.)

  A few years ago, the televised testimony of a former colonel in the Cuban Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, Roberto Ortega, also caused a stir in Cuban circles. This army officer, exiled to the United States, claimed that Archbishop Jaime Ortega led a double life: he had had intimate relations with a Cuban secret service agent described as a ‘big black guy six foot tall’. The Cuban government, according to this ex-colonel, had videos and concrete proof against Jaime Ortega. This evidence could be useful to put pressure on or blackmail the cardinal to guarantee his total support for the Castro regime. While this televised interview provoked numerous press articles, which can be found online, and while it has not been denied by Cardinal Ortega himself, it does not constitute concrete proof. As for the statements by this ex-colonel, while they are held to be credible by experts that I have interviewed, they may also have been fed by rumours or a desire for revenge inherent in political exile.

  One thing is certain, in any case: the sexual scandals within the Church in Cuba have proliferated in Cuba for several decades, both within the archbishop’s palace and the episcopate and in several dioceses in the country.

  One name recurs often: that of Mgr Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a priest in the parish of San Agustin, former vicar general of the archbishopric of Havana, who is close to Ortega. Bearing the title ‘monsignor’, Céspedes was never appointed bishop, perhaps because of his double life: his homosexuality and his sexual adventurism are well documented; his proximity to the Cuban political police too (he is reputed to enjoy ‘blessing boys’ penises’, one well-known theologian tells me).

  ‘Here in Cuba there have been lots of paedophilia scandals, a lot of sexual corruption, a real moral failure of the Church. But obviously the press has never mentioned it. The government knows everything; it has all the evidence, but it has never used it against the Church. It is keeping it to use when it needs to. It’s the regime’s usual blackmail technique,’ Veiga tells me.

  Rumours of the homosexuality of numerous priests and bishops in the Cuban episcopate are so common in Havana that they have been passed on to me with many details and names by almost all the people I have interviewed on the island – more than a hundred witnesses, including the main dissidents, foreign diplomats, artists, writers and even priests of Havana.

  ‘We have to pay attention to rumours. They can come from anywhere. We must not under-estimate the fact that there are always enemies of the Church within government, even if Fidel and Raúl Castro have evolved over the past few years,’ cautions M. Andura, the director of the Centro Cultural Félix Varela.

  And he adds, seeming to deny what he has just said: ‘It should also be pointed out that homosexuality hasn’t been a crime in Cuba for a long time. If the boys are over 16, which is the age of sexual majority here, and if they are consenting, and there is no money or power relations involved, there is no problem as such.’

  Orlando Márquez, editor of the newspaper of the Cuban episcopate, Palabra Nueva, and spokesman for Cardinal Ortega, with whom he has worked for 20 years, also agrees to see me. A good communicator, skilful and friendly, Márquez doesn’t avoid any questions. Did a compromise have to be reached with the communist regime?

  ‘If the cardinal hadn’t chosen the path of dialogue, there would be no bishops in Cuba, it’s as simple as that.’

  What does he think about talk of Cardinal Ortega’s homosexuality?

  ‘It’s a very old rumour. I’ve heard it very often. It’s because he was sent to the UMAP camps; that’s where the rumours began. Sometimes people even say that I’m gay, because I’m close to Ortega!’ Orlando Márquez adds, bursting
out laughing.

  Was Cardinal Ortega informed about sexual abuse in the archbishopric of Havana, as several diplomats in Cuba suggest? Were they covered up? What exactly happened in the Cuban Catholic hierarchy? Four first-hand testimonies confirm the considerable number of sexual scandals stretching out over many years: first of all, that of a priest I met on the recommendation of a Western diplomat; a director of the Mesa de Diálogo de la Juventud Cubana (an NGO specializing in human rights and youth); a pair of Christian activists; and finally, a fourth Cuban dissident. This information has also been confirmed in Madrid, by people very familiar with Cuba. In Santiago de Chile, two people close to Fidel Castro whom I interviewed also gave me useful information (Ernesto Ottone, the former leader of the Chilean Communist Party, and Gloria Gaitán, the daughter of the famous murdered Colombian leader). In the Vatican itself, three diplomats in the holy see confirmed that there were serious problems of sexual abuse in Cuba. The file in the Secretariat of State is highly confidential, but it is well known to Pope Francis’s diplomats, two of whom – the ‘minister’ of the interior, Giovanni Angelo Becciu, and the diplomat, Mgr Fabrice Rivet – were in office in Havana.

  I have also been given to understand that Pope Francis asked Cardinal Ortega to leave the archbishopric of Havana due to his passivity over and covering up of these scandals. This isn’t exactly true. As I am told by Guzmán Carriquiry, who runs the Pontifical Commission for Latin America in the Vatican, Jaime Ortega was almost eighty years old when he resigned, and since the pope had already kept him on beyond the age limit, it was normal for him to be replaced.

  Mgr Fabrice Rivet, who was number two in the Vatican embassy in Havana and was present with Benedict XVI when the pope met Fidel Castro in the nunciature, refuses to express himself ‘on the record’, even though he receives me five times at the Secretariat of State. With regard to Ortega, of whom he has nothing bad to say, he only says enigmatically: ‘He is very controversial.’ (Cardinals Pietro Parolin and Beniamino Stella, who were respectively nuncios in Caracas and Cuba, are also well informed about the situation; the same is true of Tarcisio Bertone, who went to Cuba five times, and one of whose private secretaries, the future nuncio Nicolas Thévenin, held office in Cuba. Plainly well informed, Thévenin would also tell me, via the journalist Nicolas Diat, one day when I was having lunch with him, some information about Ortega, Cuban homosexuality and communists. Georg Gänswein, whose assistant Thévenin had been, is also aware of the contents of the file.)

  Interviewed twice at his home in Rome, Cardinal Etchegaray, who was John Paul II’s ‘flying’ ambassador, and who knows Cuba intimately, is more favourable towards Ortega, as is Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, former ‘minister’ of foreign affairs to John Paul II, with whom I have discussed sexual scandals in detail, and who claims that they are ‘pure speculation’.

  But others in Rome and Havana are less restrained. And sometimes all it takes is a honeyed question, with promises of keeping things off the record, for tongues to loosen about the sexual morals of the archbishopric.

  First of all, there is the impressive number of homosexuals among the priests and bishops of Cuba. Protected at the level of the episcopate, this genuine freemasonry has become very visible, spilling out of the closet. They are also very ‘practising’. So I am given lengthy descriptions of the famous Sunday evening mass in Havana Cathedral which, in the 1990s, became a very popular hook-up spot in the capital.

  Then there are the priests and prelates of the Vatican who go regularly to Cuba as sexual tourists, with the blessing of the Cuban Catholic hierarchy. I have visited clubs and specialist parties in Havana for which European priests make the trip. So Cuba became, at least from the mid-1980s, a destination of choice for those who are ‘of the parish’ and ‘in the closet’ altogether.

  ‘In a way, members of religious orders think they’re exempt from man-made laws, in Cuba more than anywhere else. In their eyes, their unique status justifies and legitimizes them in exempting themselves from common law,’ Roberto Veiga suggests prudently.

  Within the Cuban episcopate, I am also told about instances of ‘internal’ sexual abuse, perpetrated by prelates on seminarians or young priests. A certain number of monsignori are also reputed to use escorts, abusing these young men while paying them desultory sums. Often, according to a first-hand witness, prostitutes are invited in groups to salacious parties where vulgar language is used – pinga (cock), friqui (fucking), maricones (queers) – and humiliations inflicted. Should they refuse to take part in these sensual agapes, they are denounced to the police, who regularly arrest the escorts, leaving the prelates free.

  Male prostitution is massive in Cuba, in particular thanks to a network of specialist clubs and bars. It also occurs on the pavements close to more mainstream places such as the Las Vegas, Humboldt 52 (which is now closed), La Gruta, and Café Cantante. Around the Parque Central, there are countless male prostitutes, as there are in the evening on Calle 23 or along the famous Malecón. In a country where corruption is universal, and where there are no journalistic or legal safeguards, it is hardly astonishing that the Catholic Church should have developed bad habits here more than elsewhere.

  ‘Cardinal Ortega is aware of everything that happens in the archbishopric: he checks everything. But if he said anything at all about sexual abuse within the Church, carried out by people close to him, carried out by bishops, his career would have been cut short. So he closed his eyes,’ a dissident I interview in Havana tells me.

  This cowardice, these silences, this omertà, these scandals are so extraordinary that it must have taken Benedict XVI’s entourage a lot of courage to inform the pope before or during his stay in Havana. When he found out about it all, and more importantly when he discovered the scale of the problem of the archbishopric in Havana, this pope who was able to gauge the breadth of the ‘filth’ in the Church (in his own word), was now seized with disgust. According to one witness, the pope, listening to this story, wept once again.

  After this, there was a lot of tension between Benedict XVI and Ortega, who previously had ‘very special relations’ with the pope (according to someone who witnessed their meeting). This time, Joseph Ratzinger had had enough. He cracked. Intransigent and shy, he had spent his whole life trying to thwart evil, and here he was literally surrounded, encircled by homosexual priests and cases of paedophilia. Was there not a single virtuous prelate?

  ‘Benedict XVI’s trip to Cuba was chaotic. The pope was in an altered state, saddened and deeply overwhelmed by what he had just learned about the extent of sexual abuse in the Cuban Church. Why he continued with his trip I don’t know. Only one thing is certain: he would decide to resign barely a week after his return from Cuba,’ Roberto Veiga tells me in the presence of one of my other researchers, Nathan Marcel-Millet.

  In Mexico, during the same trip, the pope had been disenchanted. But Cuba! Even in Cuba! This wasn’t a matter of missteps or accidents: it was a whole system. The Church was full of ‘filth’, he said it himself; but this time he discovered that the Church everywhere was corrupt. Wearied by jetlag and by the Mexican stage of his tour, where he was slightly injured during a fall, the holy father was in physical pain; in Cuba, he suffered moral pain as well. All witnesses agree: the trip was ‘terrible’. It was even a ‘genuine Calvary’.

  On the paradise island of Cuba, the pope discovered the extent of sin in the Church. ‘The net also contains some bad fish,’ he would say afterwards, in a state of despair. The trip to Cuba was the fall of the old Adam.

  ‘Yes, it was at the time of his trip to Mexico and Cuba that Pope Benedict XVI began to consider the idea of stepping down,’ Federico Lombardi confirms during one of our five conversations at the offices of the Ratzinger Foundation (Lombardi accompanied the pope to Latin America).

  ‘Why did the Castro regime, which knew all the details of these scandals implicating the Cuban episcopate, not act?’ I ask Roberto Veiga.

  ‘It’s a powerful way of keeping
the Church under control,’ he replies. ‘Not denouncing prostitution or paedophilia scandals is a way of covering them up. But it is also a way of guaranteeing that the Church, one of the main opposition forces on the island, will never turn against the regime.’

  On his return from Havana, Benedict XVI was a man in pieces. Part of him had broken. He was a ‘great soul asphyxiated’. All around him, the columns of the temple were cracked.

  A few days later, the pope decided to resign (but he would only announce his decision publicly six months later). In his book Last Testament, Benedict twice identified the trip to Cuba as the crucial moment; and while he mentioned only the physical fatigue and the ‘burden’ of his papal mission, different sources allow me to assert that he was ‘overwhelmed’ by what he learned about sexual abuse during his visit. Cuba would prove to be one of the last stops along the stations of the cross of Benedict XVI’s pontificate.

  ‘Fall? What fall? It was an act of liberation’, I am told by a grumpy Cardinal Poupard when I interview him about Benedict XVI’s last days as pope.

  Renunciation, abdication, act of liberation? Whatever the truth, on 11 February 2013, during a routine consistory, Benedict XVI abdicated. In the inaugural mass of the pontificate, eight years earlier, he had declared: ‘Pray for me, so that I may love the flock more and more. Pray for me, so that I don’t shy away from the wolves.’ The wolves had just got the better of him. It was the first time in the modern age that a pope had stepped down, and also the first time since the Avignon papacy that two popes had coexisted.