Conscience

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Armando says that it would have been spiritual suicide if he had given in to the pressure while a prisoner in Cuba. Last May he received an award from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Here is the speech he gave, in Spanish but with English translation:


"I'm an ordinary man, but God chose me to do something quite extraordinary.

"My jailers took away everything away from me. But they couldn't take my conscience or my faith.

"I am here to tell you that every little act of conscience counts. Every one of you is called to stay true to his conscience."

"Even if you spend 8 years in solitary confinement, you will never be alone because God will be with you."

"Sometimes your freedom is not taken away at gunpoint, but instead it is done one paper at a time, one seemingly meaningless rule at a time, one small silencing at a time."