In the first half of today’s program, National Catholic Register correspondent Victor Gaetan spoke about Pope Benedict XVI’s recent pilgrimage to Cuba. Gaetan identified the highpoint as the Papal Mass in Santiago de Cuba. “To see 200,000 Cubans celebrate Mass was very unique,” said Gaetan. “The Church has been persecuted since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. There is hope that they can still believe to achieve freedom.”

Gaetan added that there are two attitudes present in Cuba. One is demonstrated by the Ladies in White, a group of wives, sisters and mothers, who oppose the Castro regime and demonstrate weekly outside a Catholic Church in Havana. The other is the Castro regime, which he described as “very skewed in playing the Catholic card.”

In the second part of the program Dan Burke spoke with National Catholic Register blogger Matt Archbold about his recent post, “Write Your Own HHS Slogan.” A former reporter and campaign manager, Archbold admitted that “Catholics are the worst protesters in the entire world, yet they’ve gotten their message out.”

Archbold shared some of his favorite anti-HHS mandate slogans, including: “Contraception isn’t free when the cost is religious liberty,” and “We will not comply.” He said it’s a sad day when “the same speech that’s given in Cuba is the one that has to be given in America. All we have to do is look south – big government stamping out religious freedom.”

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