Cuban pastoral talks

CUBAN bishops are planning a national pastoral conference in 1985 to discuss the role of the Church in contemporary Cuba.
The bishops plan to invite priests, members of religious orders and lay persons to the conference.
Pope John Paul II discussed restraints on Church activity in Cuba during a June, 1983 meeting in Rome with the country's seven bishops. He said the Church was willing to enter a dialogue with the government to gain greater freedom to work for Cuba's people. He also emphasised the family's role in religious education.
Cuban ' bishops denounced Fidel Castro's actions against the Church during the turbulent early years of his revolution in the early 1960s.
That early hostility has since "given way to ideological competition", the Organisation of American States said in a report on human rights in Cuba released in January.