Mother of Díaz-Canel's Press Chief Uses Bible as a Smokescreen in Anna Bensi Case

María del Carmen Hernández Carús, the mother of Leticia Martínez Hernández, who serves as the Head of Communication for the Cuban Presidency, recently took to social media with a post that masquerades as a Christian reflection but is, in essence, a political maneuver.

Hernández Carús, mother of the loyal Leticia, refrained from condemning the repression or questioning the trial of Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente (known as Anna Bensi on social media) and her mother. She didn't address the arbitrariness of a state punishing two women for exposing the intimidation of an agent but instead dedicated extensive paragraphs to casting doubt on churches, pastors, and believers who showed solidarity with them.

A Strategic Diversion

The text begins with a facade of neutrality: "I will not comment on the young woman," it reads. She also claims she won't discuss "the trial, whether there was a crime, or if justice is being served." However, this silence is short-lived. Hernández Carús doesn't critique the abuse of power; instead, she targets those who speak out against it. She avoids confronting the core issue but assumes moral authority to question the coherence of the religious figures advocating for justice.

This is where the diversion lies: shifting the focus. The focus moves away from a young woman and her mother facing a legal process—initiated by the institutions of a totalitarian state for exercising their right to speak out—to the alleged "incoherence" of the churches.

Manipulation Through Religious Language

The victims vanish. The oppressive state is obscured. In its place is the old official narrative: the blockade, sanctions, the United States, sick children, external threats. Everything is blended together, used as a smokescreen to avoid a fundamental question: why does the Cuban regime pursue and convict two citizens who publicly defended themselves against State Security pressure?

Hernández Carús criticizes the churches for not speaking out, in her view, with the same vigor against other sufferings. But the Bible she invokes does not suggest remaining silent in the face of a particular injustice because other injustices exist globally. On the contrary: "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves," says Proverbs.

Solidarity with Anna Bensi and her mother is not a betrayal of Christian values. Incoherence is using religious language to demand selective silence in the face of state violence.

The Obscene Comparison

The publication reaches its most revealing point when Hernández Carús questions the arrested pastor, known as the "Herald of Christ." She claims to have seen him resist, asking for the arrest to be filmed, and then states she recalled Jesus.

The comparison is obscenely manipulative and twisted: she invokes Christ not to challenge those who arrest, persecute, or condemn, but to suggest that the pursued should meekly accept the abuse.

Hernández Carús references Jesus before Pilate but seems to forget who Pilate was in that scene: the representative of political power who, even knowing he had an innocent man before him, ultimately handed him over. Pilate washed his hands. She does something similar: she claims not to judge the case but ends up pointing fingers at those who stand with the victims.

Selective Morality

Her interpretation of John 19 attempts to turn Jesus's meekness into compliance with any state abuse. However, Christianity did not emerge as a doctrine of submission to power. The apostles responded to the authorities: "We must obey God rather than human beings." The biblical tradition is full of prophets denouncing oppressors, not pious officials demanding composure from the oppressed.

What seems to irk Hernández Carús is not the injustice itself, but the fact that believers are willing to call it out by its name. Hence, she accuses them of selectivity. Hence, she brings up the blockade. Hence, she invokes other Cuban pains, not to demand freedoms, but to downplay the specific persecution of Anna Bensi and her mother.

This logic doesn't aim for coherence. It aims for paralysis.

The True Agenda

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus doesn't praise the one who walks by with doctrinal excuses. He praises the one who stops for the wounded. Hernández Carús's publication doesn't pause for the wounds of Anna Bensi and her mother. It stops to scrutinize whether those who aid them are sufficiently coherent for the official narrative. It stands not with the wounded by the roadside but interrogates the Samaritan.

The issue isn't that Hernández Carús cites the Bible. The issue is the purpose behind the citation. She uses it to obscure an injustice, not to illuminate it. To reprimand the victims and their supporters, not to question the power that crushes them. To wrap a practical defense of the regime in Christian language.

Her tone of moral superiority is also striking. From her proximity to the official ecosystem, Hernández Carús permits herself to lecture on Christianity to those siding with the persecuted. It's a scene of hypocrisy that's hard to disguise: a defender of totalitarian power judging the faith of those accompanying victims of repression.

"By their fruits, you shall know them," says the Gospel. The political fruit of her publication is evident: to delegitimize solidarity with Anna Bensi and her mother, introduce tired arguments of official propaganda, turn faith into obedience, and shift the debate from state violence to the supposed incoherence of those who denounce it.

The maneuver is not new, but it is deeply immoral. It consists of demanding moral accountability from the victim and their supporters while absolving the regime that pursues, surveils, arrests, and condemns by omission. It consists of citing Christ while politically siding with Pilate.

Hernández Carús didn't offer a Christian reflection on justice. She used Christianity as a pretext to indirectly defend the power that denies justice and manipulates it at will.