Dreams Into Lightning 2

"How bad can it be?"

That's what Oh Kil-nam asked, and he found out. The South Korean native defected to North Korea in 1986 - along with his wife and two daughters. Read his story - if you can bear it - at the Belmont Club link.

Escape from North Korea Prison Camp

Shin Dong-hyuk was born in Camp 14.

He has severe burn scars on his back from being tortured. He described how prison guards punished him after his mother and brother tried to escape, even though Shin was the one who turned them in. They hung him by his arms and feet and set him over an open fire.

Shin said he didn't understand family in the normal sense. He knew that he would be punished if his mother and brother tried to escape. So to him, there was no choice but to tell the guards of their plan and avoid certain execution.

"I was 14 years old when my mother and brother were publically executed, but I felt no emotion," Shin said. "Rather, I felt relieved that I was not the one that was tied to the wooden stake of the executing, so that was what I felt at the time... I felt my mom and brother broke the prison camp rules so that they deserved what they were going through at that moment."

He watched as his mother was hanged and his brother was killed by a firing squad. It was two years after escaping to South Korea when he finally felt any guilt. ...

Read the rest at the link.

"His Holines Disowned Christ in Cuba"

Carlos Eire at Babalu on papal fallibility:

Today His Holiness Benedict XVI disowned Christ in Cuba. Today, he averted his eyes from the eleven million crucified Cubans in his midst, as he celebrated the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist. Today, he chose not to speak for the crucified, or to chasten their tormentors. Instead, he spent his time criticizing the so-called embargo, blessing the tyrants, and preaching a platitudinous sermon written for the theological faculty at the University of Regensburg rather than for the Cuban people.

And his subaltern, Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, archbishop of Havana, beamed with satisfaction at the abject submission of Church to state.

I am saddened, yes, as are many other Cubans. I wept today. I am beyond sad: today has been one of the blackest days for me in a long time. The clouds hung low. At one point the sun was blotted out. I could not help but see eleven million crosses, with bodies writhing on them, stretched from one end of Cuba to the other. But I am not broken. Nor is my faith shaken. God works in mysterious ways. The Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, Pope Benedict XVI has betrayed Cuba. So what? Aside from questions of faith and doctrine, he is as fallible as all of us are, and as prone to moral failure. And as a Catholic, it is my duty to pray for him. ...

Forget the pope. Let Peter weep, when he comes to his senses. Weeping is not for us, nor is whining. Forget any power on earth. Forget the differences between Catholics and non-Catholics. Forget heaven above, forget hell below . Cuba is hell on earth, our hell. Our task is to fight the tyrants and those who set up the eleven million crosses. ...

More from Jack Fowler at The Corner, in a similar vein:

I guess the upside for Cubans is that the cock crowed, and the heir of Peter denied them, so this upcoming Passion Week brings them closer to the Christ of Gethsemane and The Cross. But damn, shouldn’t they have been brought closer to political freedom? Again, it’s something another Holy Father would have done, and did do. But I guess the freedom of Cubans doesn’t equate to the freedom of Europeans.