Gains made since the pope's visit in 1998 reversed
Ray Sanchez | Cuba notebook
September 30, 2007
Santiago de Cuba
On a January morning nearly 10 years ago, Archbishop Pedro Meurice
introduced a papal mass here in the island's second-largest city by
boldly accusing the state of corrupting the moral traditions of Cuba.
The frankness of his message, delivered in a province known as the
birthplace of the Castro brothers' revolution and with Defense Minister
Raúl Castro sitting before him, drew applause from many of the 100,000
in the audience. The late Pope John Paul II nodded his approval.
Meurice was a quiet, reclusive prelate, and many religious leaders hoped
that the reaction to his words and the pope's visit portended a new role
for the Roman Catholic Church in socialist Cuba.
Now 75 and retired here in his native city, Meurice said hopes for
improved church-state relations have been dashed. In the intervening
years, he said, the state has quietly stripped the church of gains that
came with the historic 1998 visit.
"In the end, we have not accomplished what we're entitled to; the
Catholic Church has not been granted the right to evangelize and spread
without fear of losing its religious freedom," Meurice said in a recent
interview.
In the year since President Fidel Castro has been ill and out of the
public eye, analysts and religious leaders point to the fate of a
popular Catholic magazine and civics workshops in the western city of
Pinar del Rio as dramatic examples of tighter church control.
The most recent blow came earlier this month when the Diocese of Pinar
del Rio canceled a popular series of workshops on dealing with topics
like democracy and freedom of association. In April, Pinar del Rio's new
bishop, Jorge Serpa, dismissed the editor of Vitral magazine, Dagoberto
Valdes, one of the workshop moderators. The magazine routinely looked at
issues of liberty and repression.
Serpa, who was in Rome, was unavailable for comment, according to his
secretary.
"What has happened with Vitral and the civic center … demonstrates that
significant restrictions are now being applied," Valdes said. "I'm being
prudent in using the word 'restrictions.' I think these services are
being eliminated."
After the 1959 revolution, Cuba officially embraced atheism. Practicing
Catholics and other believers were viewed with suspicion and
discriminated against until 1992, when Cuba declared itself a secular
state and permitted Catholics and others to join the Communist Party.
But religious schools have remained closed since the early 1960s, when
hundreds of priests and church workers were expelled or jailed.
Many Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits hoped Pope John Paul
II's arrival on the island would have the same result as an earlier
visit to his native Poland – to spark the collapse of communism. But the
Polish church was strong and organized, while Cuba's had much less
influence.
Around the time of the papal visit, there were small strides: The state
legalized Christmas as a goodwill gesture to the pope; missionary
efforts in rural areas increased; religious processions returned to the
streets; and proselytizers were allowed to spread the Gospel from door
to door.
But the transcendent changes many expected never materialized. A decade
later, masses are sparsely attended except on major holidays like
Christmas and the September feast of Our Lady of Charity, Cuba's patron
saint.
No new churches have been built in Cuba since before the revolution.
"The church has serious difficulties with the repair and maintenance of
its temples," Meurice said.
The government has denied the church access to the Internet and strictly
limited access to state-controlled media. Earlier this month, for the
first time since the revolution, Santiago's new archbishop was allowed
to deliver a brief radio message on the feast of Our Lady of Charity,
Meurice said.
In April, Cuba's top Catholic leader, Cardinal Jaime Ortega of Havana,
acknowledged that the church found itself in a "delicate" position after
Castro's illness was announced in July 2006.
"At the outset, when the Cuban president fell ill, some believed that an
internal crisis would arise," he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
"The bishops made a vote that no outside interference or any type of
internal crisis should alter the peace and the coexistence." Ortega and
his spokesman were unavailable for further comment.
A Cuban government official familiar with church-state relations said
recent changes in the church were "strictly internal matters."
"The state had no influence on their decisions," he said. He spoke on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment
officially to a foreign journalist.
Meurice said: "Below the surface, very little has changed. While the
state is no longer officially atheist, there is still only one party,
the Communist Party."
Ray Sánchez can be reached at rlsanchez@sun-sentinel.com.
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