Author: Miguel A. Valdivia
Publishing date: 08/29/2002 11:01 pm
Liberty Magazine
La Nueva Cuba
Enero 4, 2003
The shift toward the present state of increased religious freedom in Cuba
seems to
have occurred sometime in the early 1980s. In 1985 Frei Betto, a Brazilian
Jesuit
priest, published a book entitled Fidel and Religion—a summary of 23 hours
of
conversation with the country’s leader. That book projected a keen apology
of
Cuban government views. In it Castro offered personal insights on the subject
of
religion.
About Christ, Castro stated, “I never perceived a contradiction in the
political
revolutionary field between the ideas I maintained and the idea of that
symbol, that
extraordinary figure who had been so familiar to me since I began to reason.”
1
On the subject of prayer in the Catholic Church he recalled: “I have seen,
for
instance, in some religions, the habit of praying as if talking with another,
spontaneously, with one’s own words, to express a feeling. That was never
taught
to us [from his childhood Castro attended Catholic schools], but to repeat
what
was written, once, ten times, one hundred times, absolutely mechanically.
That
really isn’t a prayer; it’s an exercise of the vocal cords.” 2 About hell
Castro said: “I
remember long sermons on hell, about its heat, its sufferings, its anxiety.
I really
don’t know how such a cruel hell could be invented....One cannot conceive
of a
place that would deal so harshly with a person, no matter how great his
sins might
have been.” 3
About that time Castro expressed his attitude toward the church in several
conciliatory meetings with Catholic bishops and Protestant leaders. In
September
of 1985 he appealed to his party activists to respect the rights of believers
and
promised to start working to help solve the “material needs” of the church.
José
Felipe Carneado, then chief of religious affairs within the Cuban Communist
Party,
stated during an interview in January 1986 that the party no longer considered
the
teaching of atheism as a key element in their ideological work.
Some see the government’s attempts at reconciliation with the churches
as
strategic steps taken to win the support of Liberation Theology militants
and to
build the party’s image in the eyes of international opinion. Whatever
the motives,
changes since 1985 have brought wonderful benefits to Cuban believers.
During the first years of the revolution, religious repression in Cuba
included the
closing down of the main Catholic magazine La Quincena, the occupation
and
confiscation of Catholic and Protestant schools, and the jailing and deportation
of
several priests. By 1961 hundreds of priests and bishops had been detained
and
some churches profaned. These confrontations reduced the number of priests
and
other Catholic religious workers to a fourth of their 1960 total.4 Other
religions
suffered equally significant losses. When Fidel Castro came to power in
1959,
there were some 15,000 Jews in Cuba. Today there are only an estimated
1,500
Jews throughout the island. 5
Seventh-day Adventist pastor Noble Alexander recalls the day of February
20,
1962, when he was detained while driving home after preaching a sermon
in
Matanza, Cuba. Authorities pulled him over and told him he was wanted for
five
minutes of questioning. Those five minutes turned into 22 years in a Cuban
prison.
A year after his arrest he faced a mock trial on charges of trying to kill
Cuban
president Fidel Castro. A lawyer he had never seen pleaded guilty on his
behalf.
Pastor Alexander was one of 26 political prisoners Fidel Castro released
after a
visit by Jesse Jackson in June 1984. Also released was Thomas White, a
Los
Angeles school teacher who spent several months in prison. He had been
condemned for dropping evangelistic leaflets over Cuba from a plane.6
The harassment of religion in Cuba has included the sending of workers
of various
denominations to forced labor camps. In these they have suffered physical
and
verbal abuse. Another type of abuse was called the “street plan.” It consisted
of
conducting activities next to church buildings in order to interrupt the
religious
services. Juan Clark, a Cuban-American journalist, interviewed a Catholic
parishioner who told of Communist Party youth running screaming into a
church
and throwing eggs, one of which hit the priest.7
The Protestant churches experienced similar attacks. Baptists were pelted
with
stones inside their church. Religious youth in Cuba have suffered for their
faith over
the years because atheism was deemed the backbone of Cuban education.
Excellent students have been denied the opportunity of enrolling in the
best
schools because of their religious convictions. Textbooks deny the historicity
of
Christ and criticize the biblical account of creation.
Only during the past few years have the churches been allowed to conduct
direct
evangelism. Before, they would disguise their outreach as cultural or musical
programs. Christians would commit Bible passages to memory so they wouldn’t
be
seen carrying a Bible to other homes. Today churchgoers may invite friends
and
neighbors to undisguised evangelistic meetings. Although Bibles are not
readily
available in stores, church organizations can purchase them in bulk from
state-approved venues.
By 1985 less than 1 percent of the total population of 8.5 million were
attending the
Catholic Church. Even so, with only 192 priests Cuba had the lowest clergy
to
potential parishioner ratio in Latin America.8 And while Protestant churches
have
been growing, their growth has trailed that in other countries. Recent
growth,
however, has been astounding. Seventh-day Adventists, for example, baptized
more than 2,000 in just one day in February of 1999. Jehovah’s Witnesses
have
also experienced considerable growth (now approximately 80,000 members).
The year 1999 was good for religious freedom on the island. Pope John Paul
II’s
visit to Cuba from January 21 to 25 made several historic firsts. He celebrated
public Masses attended by hundreds of thousands in Havana, Camagüey,
Villa
Clara, and Santiago de Cuba. In his 11 discourses the pope emphasized the
need
for fundamental human freedoms.
On December 1, 1999, the government declared that henceforth citizens would
be
allowed to celebrate Christmas as an official holiday and permitted the
Catholic
cardinal to speak briefly on national media on the celebration. However
a report
from the U.S. Department of State confirms that Nativity scenes in public
areas are
still prohibited.9
The government requires churches and other religious groups to register
with the
provincial Registry of Associations to obtain official recognition. Until
recently,
when some concessions have been made, the construction of new church
buildings has been outlawed. This has forced the growing congregations
to meet in
private homes. Although house churches have occasionally been singled out
for
harassment by government representatives, the use of private homes for
religious
worship has provided an exceptional opportunity for Cubans to follow their
religious
orientation. Thousands of house churches are providing places of worship
in many
communities in which building of new churches is not allowed and in which
the
means of transportation are limited at best.
There have been advances in religious liberty for Cubans, but even today
there is an
ever-present danger. In 1985 Fidel compared the church to the revolution,
saying: “If
you [Christians] appreciate the spirit of self-denial and other human values,
those
are the values we exalt.... If the church were to create a state according
to those
principles, it would organize one such as ours.”10 So believers are pressured
to
compromise in favor of a state that pretends to replace it ideologically.
This threat
in some ways is more dangerous than open persecution. In Cuba church and
state
make strange bedfellows.
Footnotes 1 Fidel Castro and Frei Betto, Fidel y la Religión (Santo
Domingo:
Editora Alfa y Omega, 1985), p. 322.
2 Ibid., p. 149.
3 Ibid., p. 150.
4 Juan Clark, Religious Repression in Cuba (Miami: University of Miami,
1985), p.
9.
5 www.jewishcuba.org/cohen.html.
6 See Noble Alexander, I Will Die Free (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub.
Assn.,
1991).
7 Clark, p. 27.
8 Ibid., p. 89.
9 “U.S. Department of State, Cuba: Religious Freedom Summary,” Annual Report
on International Religious Freedom, 1999.
10 Castro and Betto, p. 263.