Cuban Catholicism: Making a Cautious Comeback

HAVANA, June 29 (RNS)--They come to the Havana Cathedral from throughout the city: the 86-year-old woman who never stopped attending through years of being pelted by eggs and public insults, the 16-year-old acolyte who was changed from an atheist to someone for whom the Roman Catholic Church is "my religion, my life, everything"--simply by a nun's visit.

During the service, the red-white-and-blue Cuban flag stands directly behind Cardinal Jaime Ortega as he implores followers not to look to the skies for God but to see the Almighty in the faces of "subversives," the poor and prisoners.

Outside the old stone cathedral, beggars sit upright on the ground four abreast on either side of the exit, holding their hands heavenward in gestures of supplication to the hundreds of worshippers as they leave at the end of Mass.

This is the face of the church in Cuba, a slowly growing institution that is looked upon for food, medicine, and spiritual hope in a society that has struggled through nearly a decade of economic depression since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the loss of the $6 billion a year subsidy Moscow once provided.

In 1998, when Pope John Paul II came to visit and hundreds of thousands poured into fields in Santiago and the Plaza of the Revolution in downtown Havana for public Masses, there was hope in some circles that Cuba would follow Poland's example and the walls of political oppression would come tumbling down amid public expressions of religious freedom.

That scenario was unrealistic, Cuban observers now admit. The church has fought hard to maintain itself as the only significant independent organization in this island nation of 11 million. However, the Catholic Church's careful expansion of its influence in areas from education to humanitarian aid occurs on the razor's edge of independence, where there is a recurring fear that one day it will be cast back into the 1960s and 1970s, when believers were harassed or imprisoned.

The Cuban government allowed four days of freedom when Pope John Paul II came to the island, said Havana Bishop Alfredo Petit.

"After that, the teacher said, `Boys, the playtime is over,'" Petit said.

The case of Elian Gonzalez once again focused attention on Cuba and the role of the Catholic Church. With only an estimated 2,500 political dissidents on the island, the church is seen as the only institution outside the government capable of generating social change.

An estimated 40% of the people in the country are baptized Catholics, but the percentage of those connected to the church rises to 60% when one considers all the services people seek at significant moments in their lives, from births to funerals.

But parallels to Poland in the 1980s end there. When it gets right down to who comes to church in Cuba, after 40 years of often-bitter persecution, less than 2% are considered active Catholics, according to church officials.

"The people, they are afraid," said Archbishop Luis Robles Diaz, papal nuncio to Cuba.

With good historical reason. In 1961, shortly after the revolution, Fidel Castro, once an altar boy, expelled 130 priests. Some others, like now-Cardinal Ortega, were tossed into prison camps.

The climate for religious freedom, however, has improved dramatically since 1992, when Cuba officially became a secular rather than an atheist state, and Communist Party members were permitted to belong to churches. In the months before the papal visit, the Cuban government allowed more foreign priests to enter the country and gave permission for outdoor processions and other public displays of religion.

Starting in 1997, in a huge morale boost for the Christian community, the country was once again allowed to celebrate Christmas publicly.

With the freedom, some of the fear has dissipated.

Fifty-one-year-old Ofelia Matos, a sewer operator and party member, returned to the Catholic faith of her parents after the 1992 law made it possible.

"People don't have to be afraid as they were before to come to church," said Matos, wearing a wooden cross over a white blouse outside the cathedral. "With God, nothing is impossible. I search for the truth inside the Catholic Church. I realize the truth lies in the spirit of God."

The church is still not allowed to open parochial schools and is severely restricted in its ability to publish materials and speak on radio or television. There are limits on visas for foreign priests and building permits for new churches, and newfound freedoms of outdoor worship and door-to-door evangelization rest on tentative ground.

What it has on its side is a traditional place in Cuban culture and the diplomatic authority of the Vatican in shaping international opinion.

"The breathing room doesn't come easy. The church's strength is its persistence and its appeal. Time is on their side," said Thomas Garofalo, director of the Cuba Program for the U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services. "They continue to be the only institution in Cuban society that can convoke the people except the government."

Slowly, that role is expanding, particularly in the area of social services, where the church is filling in some of the growing cracks in Cuba's struggling economy. Government wariness of the people depending on any independent institution for aid is giving way to practical concerns for unmet basic needs and pressure from below to accept relief.

Continued on page 2: »