Another Pope, a Different Cuba

Another Pope, a Different Cuba
Why Francis Can Expect a Warm Welcome in Havana
Tom QuigleyAugust 31, 2015 - 12:47pm

It was just a simple announcement. On April 22, Holy See press spokesman
Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, revealed that Pope Francis had "decided to
pay a visit" to Cuba on his way to the United States in late September.
Pay a visit. It almost sounded like an afterthought.

Contrast that with the Sturm und Drang that accompanied Pope John Paul
II's 1998 visit to Cuba. It was a momentous event, arguably as
significant in its time as the Obama-Castro handshake at the Panama
Summit of the Americas last April.

At the time of John Paul's visit, I was advising the U.S. Conference of
Catholic bishops on Latin American issues. My office helped to
coordinate events before and during the trip. Several memories from
those days stand out. Here's one: As John Paul's plane was approaching
José Marti airport that Wednesday, January 21, 1998, ABC News invited me
to provide color commentary. I was seated on a large platform in the
middle of Havana's Parque Central surrounded by a crowd of several
hundred people patiently waiting for something—no one knew quite what—to
happen. I had been fitted with a microphone and an earpiece, and was
listening to TV journalists chattering on the plane about what was
rumored, what was confirmed, and what could be reported. The pope
landed, but I was never called on to speak. When the ABC producer came
to fetch me, I learned that the story of the day was about someone named
Monica Lewinsky. Much of the media headed home.

Prior to John Paul's arrival, no one knew for certain how accommodating
the Cuban government would be. The Cuban Interests Section in Washington
left little doubt that the visit was initially viewed skeptically by the
Cuban government. There were no guarantees about radio and TV coverage,
nor was there certainty about venues for the papal events. That
everything fell into place during the final days, including full
coverage on national TV, ensured that it would be a major moment in
Cuban history. (Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, it's worth noting,
accompanied John Paul on his trip to Cuba.)

Pope Benedict XVI made an equally significant visit to Cuba in April
2012. But, while John Paul's visit was met with near universal acclaim
in the United States, Benedict wasn't so fortunate. Much of the
Cuban-American community, previously dubious of John Paul's meeting with
ese hombre, Fidel Castro, looked forward to the trip. But, given that
John Paul's visit had failed to dislodge the Castro regime, lots of
Americans weren't so sure about Benedict's visit, and it received a fair
amount of intense and uninformed criticism in the United States.

Francis should fare better. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), of course,
deplored Benedict's visit. He and many others on the right are still
angry at Obama's handshake with Raúl Castro in Panama, orchestrated in
part by Francis, so they can be counted on to "regret" the Cuban visit.
But there is every reason to expect Francis will be very well received.
He will be facing a Cuba that has changed considerably since the last
papal visit. Part of the difference comes from the dramatic shift in the
Cuban-U.S. relationship, which Francis himself helped bring about.

Another difference will be that, to the extent that Francis has access
to Cuban radio and TV, he will truly be heard by the Cuban people. John
Paul and Benedict, both elderly and neither an accomplished Spanish
speaker, gave marvelous speeches—all worth reading but, at the time,
barely heard by the people they had come to visit. Papa Bergoglio will
be avidly watched and widely heard.

Another difference between Francis's visit and his predecessors' is the
quality of the papal diplomacy with respect to Cuba. The current prefect
of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, was
nuncio to Cuba from 1992 to '99 and was instrumental in planning the
1998 visit. (Stella, incidentally, was first sent to the diplomatic
academy by his bishop at the time, Albino Luciani, who would later
become Pope John Paul I.)

What's more, Cardinal Stella was in Cuba last April to celebrate the
eightieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Holy
See. The revolution did not sever ties between Cuba and the Holy See. In
fact, the ambassador sent to the Vatican by Castro in 1961, Luis
Amado-Blanco, stayed in office so long that he became dean of the
diplomatic corps. That reportedly irritated the American representative
to the Holy See, who was forced to bring up the rear in formal ceremonies.

The Holy See did downgrade its representation in Havana when the nuncio,
Archbishop Luigi Centoz, had to leave after the Cuban government cracked
down on the church following the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. For the next
dozen years, the Vatican was represented by a chargé d'affaires, Msgr.
Cesare Zacchi. He was finally named nuncio in 1974.

On December 29, 2003, the nuncio to Burundi, Irish-born Archbishop
Michael Courtney, was murdered as he was about to bring to the European
Union damning evidence of crimes committed by the former president of
that country. He had just been assigned nuncio to Cuba but, like another
man assassinated on December 29, Thomas Becket, Michael Aiden Courtney
joined the ranks of murdered archbishops.

The past four nuncios to Cuba, with a single curious exception, are all
viewed widely as outstanding diplomats. Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi,
currently nuncio to Canada, was stationed in Cuba from 2004 until '09.
He was succeeded by Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, currently the number two
in the Vatican's Secretariat of State. Becciu played a major role in the
historic release of prisoners in Cuba, and was brought back to Rome in 2011.

Next came Archbishop Bruno Musaro, the exception, known principally for
violating the first law of diplomacy: The only place you can criticize
the country you're assigned to is in official dispatches. It seems
Musaro was on vacation in his native Italy and preached at an outdoor
Mass in the city of Castro Marina. Whether he was aware his homily was
being taped is unclear, but his criticism of the Cuban government soon
went viral.

The Cuban people, he claimed, were "victims of a socialist dictatorship
that has kept them subjugated for the past fifty-six years.... The only
hope for a better life is to escape the island.... Only liberty can
bring hope to the Cuban people.... I am thankful to the pope for
inviting me to this island, and I hope to leave once the socialist
regime has disappeared indefinitely." Needless to say, his departure
came a bit sooner. Musaro is now nuncio to Egypt.

The present nuncio to Cuba, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, has just come
from his post as nuncio to Iraq and Jordan. Lingua's diplomatic
discretion is so legendary that friends have a saying that "Lingua ["the
tongue"] doesn't talk." It will be Lingua who will be at the pope's side
in Cuba this month.

And then there was the visit that didn't happen. Back in the late 1980s,
the church in Cuba had begun to explore the possibility of a papal visit
set to coincide with the 1992 Quinto Centenario, the fifth centenary of
the beginning of the evangelization of the Americas. In June 1989, the
Cuban bishops issued a pastoral letter that made reference to la próxima
visita of the Holy Father, indicating that the government had agreed to
a visit. But that year was also the year the Berlin Wall fell, soon
followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cuban government was
well aware of John Paul's role in ending Communism in Poland. They
wanted to keep this Polish troublemaker off their island.

After the Soviet subsidies ended, there were shortages of almost
everything. Few leaders could have been less welcome than John Paul. But
Castro couldn't just withdraw the invitation, so, in a series of "off
the cuff" remarks in Brazil on March 17, 1990, he denounced the Cuban
Catholic Church and its bishops, who, he suggested, would rather be in
Miami. That did the trick.

Today, Cuba is far from a free and democratic society, but, with a good
bit of help from the church it once oppressed, it is getting ever
closer. And that will almost certainly count as one of Pope Francis's
major accomplishments.

Source: Another Pope, a Different Cuba | Commonweal Magazine -
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/another-pope-different-cuba