Sorry Francis, Cuba 2015 Is Not Poland 1989

In early June, the distinguished Catholic editor Dagoberto Valdés Hernández, a leader of the Cuban democratic opposition, gave a lecture at Georgetown and reprised its main points later that day at the National Endowment for Democracy (on whose bipartisan board I serve). Mr. Valdés has thought long and hard about the challenges of democratic transition in Cuba, and about the role the Catholic Church should play in building a post-Castro future for that island prison. Thus his hopes for what Pope Francis might accomplish in his September visit to Cuba (prior to his pilgrimage to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and his stops in Washington and New York) are worth pondering â?? not least because they likely reflect the views of many faithful, pro-democracy Cuban Catholics.