Cuba: a tempting destination

ON ITS front page this week, the Sunday Times announced "Come to Cuba, 'convert' Castro tells Pope" and went on to report that Fidel Castro has issued a warm invitation to the Pope to visit the island. Unfortuntately for the Sunday Times, the report was later refused as speculative since no invitation had been issued by 'Castro nor received by the Vatican.
It is perhaps predictable that the major reaction to the report here in Europe was to dismiss the alleged invitation as simply an attempt by Fidel Castro to improve his image. This judgment, however, belies the present state of the Church's relations with the government in Cuba, and disregards a long process of rapprochement and reconciliation which has been under way in the country.
Although the Sunday Times `scoop' was a false alarm, there is every reason to believe that it is highly probable that the Pope will be invited to Cuba in the not-too-distant future and that, if invited, he would accept. As far back as 1979, Fidel Castro discreetly let the Holy See know, through the then Nuncio, Mario Tagliaferri, that Cuba would welcome the Pope if he wished to visit the island.
This invitation was just as discreetly declined, but it has been clear since then that, as far as both the Cuban Bishops and the government were concerned, the question of a papal visit was not if he would come, but when. Speculation increased when, in October 1984 whilst visiting the neighbouring islands of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the Pope himself expressed his desire to visit Cuba `the pearl of the Caribbean' but lacked an invitation to do so, at that time.
This year certainly presents an opportunity to fulfil this wish: 1986 sees the culmination of a long process of self-examination within the Church in Cuba. For four years every parish and diocese throughout the country Chas been engaged in the "Church Reflexion", a serious attempt to translate the recommendations of the Vatican Council, Medellin and Puebla into action within the Cuban socialist society.
Next month this period of consultation and debate reaches its climax in a week-long national Church meeting which is expected to pave the way to a permanent and significant improvement in Church-state relations. For pastoral reasons alone, a papal visit this year would be very much in order: 1986 marks the tercentenary of the consecration of the first Bishop in Cuba, and sees the seventieth anniversary of the proclamation of Our Lady of Charity as the patron of the island.
At the time of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, when many governments, under pressure from the United States, broke off diplomatic relations with the new revolutionary government, the Vatican maintained its representative in the island.
The major crisis in Churchstate relations came in 1961, when it was discovered that a number of priests took part in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, where a force of Cuban exiles, backed by the CIA attempted in vain to overturn the revolution. National outrage against the invasion turned against the Church, and culminated in the expulsion of some 130 priests who were deemed to be actively engaged in counter revolutionary activities.
A mo=or handicap to the Church at ',at time was the essentially middle-class nature of its supporters. Many thousands of Cubans fled to the United States, ostensibly because of the fear that communism would violently wipe out religion, but more accurately because wide-ranging nationalisation and redistribution stripped comfortable land and property owners of what was considered to be excessive wealth.
The instinct for selfpreservation of the wealthy, who claimed persecution on the grounds that they were Christian, did not help the Church to retain its credibility with the mass of the Cuban population, the poor, who were the net beneficiaries of the social programmes of the revolution.
It is undeniable that during the early and mid-sixties real conflict existed between Church and state: indeed, the present Archbishop of Havana, Jaime Ortega, served eighteen months in a labour camp.
It is also, however, uncontested that discrimination now against Christians at an individual level, is the result of abuse of power by low and middle-level government functionaries rather than government policy. An office of Religious Affairs was set up by the Cuban communist party in an attempt to minimise conflicts and resolve any reported incidents of discrimination. Last year the status of this office was enhanced, and it has made an important contribution towards the re-establishment of Churchstate relations from the conflict of the sixties, the "normal" relations in the seventies, and the new confident cordiality of relations at present.
A great virtue of the Bishops' conference in Cuba has been their patriotism: they are well aware that any public statement of hostility to the government would play into the hands of Cuba's enemies — especially the United States and have taken great pains to resolve tensions through discussion rather than confrontation. Their statement deploring the United States economic and military blockade of the island removed much of the stigma against the church remaining from the Bay of Pigs debacle.
There are still however a number of restrictions on the Church: most sorely felt is its lack of access to the mass-media and the general prohibition of Christians becoming members of the Communist Party — up until now deemed essential for entry into the Diplomatic Corps or to be a minister in Government.
It must not be forgotten, however, that Cuba is part of Latin America, and as such both Church and state have learned important lessons from Christians throughout that continent. The Cuban revolution took place before the Second Vatican Council, before the Latin American church made its "option for the poor", and both groups have been enriched by the witness of Christians, from Archbishop Romero to the humblest of peasants, involved in the struggle for social change in a continent characterised by injustice.
Since 1971, Fide) Castro has talked of the possibility of a "Strategic alliance" between Christians and communists in work for social justice. His increasingly frequent statements praising Christian values, the dedication of religious orders in Cuba in social work, and most recently, his call to Christians to work together for the resolution of the Latin American debt crisis has brought Church-state relations into a new productive phase.
Meetings between the Bishops' conference and Fidel Castro held in September, November and December 1985 have been described by Mgr Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, Secretary to the Bishops' Conference as "warm and positive".
There are, of course, Catholics and communists who prefer to cling to traditional attitudes of antipathy and mistrust, but it cannot be denied that hundreds of thousands of Cubans are Catholics who support the revolution and look hopefully towards the future.