By Esteban Israel, Reuters November 2, 2010
PENALVER, Cuba — The Roman Catholic Church will open on Wednesday its
first new seminary in Cuba in more than half a century in a further sign
of its improving relations with the island's communist-led government.
Workers this week put the final touches to the salmon-colored complex of
buildings organized around a chapel with stained-glass windows, 15 km
south of Havana.
The seminary replaces a similar complex expropriated by Cuba's communist
authorities in 1966 and transformed first into a military barracks, then
a police academy. A seminary is a school that teaches theology and
religious history and prepares students for priesthood.
Catholic officials said Cuban President Raul Castro was expected to
attend the inauguration — reflecting the more cordial relations between
the Church and the government.
The two sides for a long period were at odds following the 1959
revolution that put Fidel Castro in power and transformed the island
into a communist state.
Since Raul Castro took over the presidency in 2008 because of his elder
brother's failing health, he has pursued better relations with what is
one of the country's largest and most socially influential institutions
outside of the government.
"He knows what the construction of this means to us. The president is
well disposed towards the Church and he is showing that with his
presence at the inauguration," Antonio Rodriguez, rector of the San
Carlos and San Ambrosio seminary, told Reuters.
Cuban Catholics view the project as a step toward the opening of new
spaces for religion in Cuban society.
"Undoubtedly, it raises the visibility of the Church. We have to look at
it with hope," Rodriguez said.
President Castro turned to the Church this year to serve as an internal
interlocutor as he faced growing international pressure over political
prisoners and human rights.
Cuban Church leader Cardinal Jaime Ortega negotiated with him the
ongoing release of more than 50 political prisoners and, according to
Western diplomats, opened an unofficial line of communication between
Cuba and the United States, which do not have full formal diplomatic
relations.
The construction of the new seminary, a project aspired to by the
Catholic Church since the ground-breaking visit of Pope John Paul II to
Cuba in 1998, received strong support when Raul Castro came to power,
church officials said.
Before the Pope's visit triggered a warming of relations, Cuba's bishops
were often highly critical of the government.
There were incidents of dissidents shouting "Freedom" and "Free
political prisoners" during Catholic church masses, with protesters
dragged off by plain-clothes government agents.
After the seminary was taken over by the government in 1966, it operated
in an 18th century building in Old Havana that it eventually outgrew.
For a long time, construction of a new seminary appeared to be
"unthinkable," Rodriguez said.
Along with its political significance, the seminary will also train new
Cuban Catholic priests, who have been in short supply since 75 per cent
of them left after the revolution.
To help celebrate the inauguration of the new facility, bishops from the
Vatican and several countries are due to attend, among them Thomas
Wenski, the Archbishop of Miami, the heart of the Cuban exile community
in the United States.
Cuba's government helped facilitate the purchase of construction
materials and other aspects of the seminary project, which was financed
with donations from the Episcopal Conference of Italy, the Knights of
Columbus in the United States and Catholic groups in Germany.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Cuba+Catholics+open+first+seminary+decades/3765017/story.html
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