News- Cuba

The Hour of Faith

The first papal visit is still months away, but already Cuba's Catholics are seeing a surge in pastoral activity, along with a remarkable softening in the government's opposition.

By Alejandro Bermudez

"Five minutes; my whole life changed in just five minutes." That refrain comes from an unusual love song, heavily laced with revolutionary sentiments as well, which is popular among Cuban Marxists.

But for Cuban Catholics, it was took only one minute to signal a change in the whole life of the island nation, and especially in the relationship between the Church and the government of Fidel Castro. In one minute of television coverage, a government-sponsored broadcast signaled a surprising and successful comeback for Catholicism, which had been on the brink of social and cultural oblivion.

On Sunday June 29--the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul--the Catholic Church in Cuba celebrated an outdoor Mass, with government approval, for the first time since the revolution of 1959 brought Castro to power. Some 5,000 cheerful natives of Havana flocked to the plaza outside the city's cathedral to attend the Mass, which was celebrated by the city's Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino. The cardinal, who is also the head of the Cuban bishops' conference, is rapidly becoming a major figure in the worldwide Church; he is the second-youngest member (after Sarajevo's Cardinal Vinko Puljic) of the college of cardinals. Within Havana, he is even more clearly a rising star.

However, while the government approval for the outdoor Mass was a surprise, a much greater surprise was in store that evening, when the national television news broadcast--controlled by the Communist Party--devoted a full minute of coverage to the Mass. That breakthrough, after years of official hostility and silence, marked a whole new era for the rapidly recovering Cuban Church.

That minute was interpreted by most political analysts as a clear indication that the Castro government wanted to build bridges toward the Church--and especially toward the Vatican, where Pope John Paul II has been a strong supporter of the effort to lift an American embargo on Castro's island.

For the nation's Catholics, however, that one minute of broadcast coverage carries a somewhat different message. Today, they believe, the growing Catholic presence in Cuban public affairs is something Castro's government can no longer afford to ignore.

For the past ten years, under the leadership of Cardinal Ortega y Alamino, the Catholic Church has worked steadily to enlarge the small field of operations that opened in 1992, when the government formally changed the status of the Cuban regime from an official atheistic government of a "secular" state. As a result of that change, the fact that a Cuban citizen was known to be Catholic was no longer an adequate reason--formally, at least--to deny him a place in a university class, or an administrative job in a government agency.

As far back as 1986, the Cuban bishops had called upon the Cuban National Council to hold a meeting at which, for the first time, Church and government representatives discussed new ways in which Church social ministries could function within the limitations of a Communist society and its government-run welfare programs. Today that Council meeting is still seen as a landmark on the road to recovery of Catholic influence.

But an even greater advance began in 1989, after the fall of the European Communist governments, and especially the Soviet Union. Suddenly Cuba, which had become dependent on generous subsidies from Moscow, saw its national income shrink by 60 percent; the nation's industrial and agricultural capacity, cut off from its supply of inexpensive Soviet oil, decreased by 70 percent.

The Catholic Church took advantage of that critical moment to increase her social activities. With help from German, Italian, and American Catholics, the Cuban Church was able to open two new hospitals and several centers to care for the elderly or for abandoned children. The government could not fail to recognize that effort at a time of need, and in 1992 Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity became the first "foreign" congregation allowed to start a mission in Cuba.

The decision to give a cardinal's red had to Archbishop Ortega y Alamino in 1994, certainly helped to foster the Catholic recovery. Since Ortega thus became the second cardinal in Cuban history, and the first since 1956, even the government-controlled press was forced to give reluctant coverage to the appointment. When the newly installed cardinal returned home, a welcoming ceremony was organized at the Havana cathedral. Although at that point the government was not prepared to allow an outdoor Mass--Church plans for the first authorized open-air Catholic liturgy since the revolution were turned down--a giant step in that direction was taken nonetheless. With the help of US Catholic assistance, two giant video screens (the first to be seen in Cuba) were placed outside the cathedral, so that the multitude outside the building could follow the Mass.

The progress in church-state relations has not always been smooth. Some strong statements by the bishops--such as one that followed the downing of two Cuban-American civil aircraft early in 1996--revived old tensions. But at the same time, these statements demonstrated that the Cuban bishops were acquiring a new social prominence, and developing their political skills. At the same time, a quiet but skillful Vatican effort to gain new freedom for the Church--a campaign which used as leverage the fact that Cuba is the only Latin American country which Pope John Paul has not yet visited--helped to put the Church on solid new terrain.

The new hospitals, the hospices, and the growing structure of the Catholic relief service "Caritas" are certainly strengthening the social Catholic presence in Cuba. But according to Father Felix Perez, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Havana, "this does not explain this whole phenomenon." In a conversation with CWR, Father Perez insisted that the most important element of the new Catholic presence is the growth in evangelization.

When the Vatican announced that Pope John Paul would finally visit Cuba in January 1998, the nation's bishops responded by launching a major drive in evangelization. "Each parish has organized a team that goes door by door bringing the image of Our Lady of El Cobre (the patroness of Cuba) and distributing the Gospel of Mark, which we have printed in a bulk quantities with the help of Italian, German and American Catholics," Father Perez says. "The fruits are simply outstanding, we have found a people starving for God, for the Gospel, and for the experience of consistent community that only the Church can provide."

"The only thing we regret is the dramatic lack of ministers--in particular, of priests--because we have each day more and more people approaching the parishes to return to the sacraments or to be baptized," reveals Father Perez. Although Castro last year allowed the entry of forty missionary priests and religious--the first foreign missionaries allowed to enter Cuba in 38 years--the Church still must go a long way to recover from the hemorrhage of 960, when Castro expelled 550 priests, bringing the total number of priests on the island down to just 200.

Even in that shortage of clergy, however, it is possible to discern some positive news. Lay people are becoming increasingly heavily involved in the evangelization campaign--showing that they have rediscovered their baptismal vocation.

In fact, "it is surprising to see how people open up the doors when we visit them with the Gospel," says Octavio Diaz, a layman who works as a volunteer missionary at the Sacred Heart parish in the El Vedado district of Havana. "Even hard-core Communists tolerate it when we to talk to their wives and to invite their children to the Catechism." Diaz observes this sort or reception represents an enormous change in public attitudes; in the face of stronger opposition, door-to-door evangelization "was just impossible five years ago," he says.

Father Perez, who is also head of a committee charged with preparations for the Pope's visit, says that lay involvement "is already the first, anticipated fruit of the Pope's presence in the island."

"We are amazed, happy and at the same time concerned about the incredible religious awakening that the preparation of the Holy Father's visit has unleashed here," Father Perez says. "We keep asking ourselves: If this is happening before the visit--my God, what can we expect after?" He shrugs and concludes: "We will

certainly need all the help we can get."

In fact, the meager Church facilities are already proving insufficient to serve the new demand. Chapels are too small, priests too few to handle the request for sacraments, parishes too poor to receive the increasing number of youngsters who want to gather for religious education, seminaries too crowded to accommodate the soaring number of applicants.

"We believe that the Pope's visit will come as a great blessing, so we are concerned by that, but not over concerned," Father Perez says. "The Holy Father will come as an evangelizer; he will awaken

consciences and the Spirit will provide the means."

"For many people, this visit will have possible political overtones," the vicar general notes. "It might, or it might not; for us, that is not important. The only important thing is that Cuban people will come

closer to Christ."

Alejandro Bermudez writes for ACI-Prensa in Lima, Peru.