BY LUISA YANEZ

  A high-ranking Cuban cleric on Tuesday said there is no religious persecution on the island and questioned the motives of at least 23 young pilgrims in
  his delegation who defected in Canada over the weekend.

  Speaking for the first time since the defection, Guantánamo Bishop Carlos Baladrón denied reports his delegation traveled to Canada under the watchful
  eye of the Cuban security forces to the World Youth Day Celebration during Pope John Paul II's weekend visit.

  ''We felt totally free while in Canada,'' he said from the airport in Varadero as he and the final group of 131 of the 200-member delegation returned to
  Cuba.

  About the defection, Baladrón said: ``To commit an act like this, people say things that are not true . . . for example, we have not had any religious
  persecution, neither here [in Cuba] nor there [in Canada].''

  Baladrón hinted material reasons may have lured the group. He said migration ``is unstoppable and young people migrate from one place to another;
  sometimes, of course, for material reasons . . . ''

  In Toronto, as many as 15 of the young Catholics began the process of asking for political asylum. They will claim religious persecution, said Ismael
  Sambra, head of the Cuban-Canadian Foundation, which helped carry out the defections.

  Many already requested appointments with Canadian immigration officials, but remained in safe houses and refused to be interviewed.

  ''They are very fearful about speaking out right now,'' said Andres Perera, a Toronto attorney representing a handful of the defectors.

  At least one of the Cuban pilgrims has relatives in Miami and has contacted them for help. A woman in the group, identified as Letty Valle, called Nicolas
  Ramos, who would not reveal his relationship to the woman on Tuesday.

  ''I don't want to talk to reporters because I don't want to endanger her chances in Canada,'' Ramos said.

  Other reports have two of the defectors, a male and female doctor in their early 20s, seeking political asylum at the U.S. border at Niagara Falls. They
  also may have relatives in Miami and Tampa. The reports could not be confirmed.

  Raoul Boulakia, president of the Association of Refugee Lawyers of Ontario, said the Catholic pilgrims will have to explain the contradiction between the
  alleged religious persecution they suffer on the island and the permission the Cuban government granted them to travel.

  Jaime Suchlicki, director of University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said that while the Catholic Church and its followers are
  allowed to exist on the island, their influence is limited by the government.

  ''The . . . church in Cuba has no access to the media or to printing presses, so proselytizing is a difficult thing,'' he said. ``The church survives under
  difficult circumstances in Cuba.''

  Herald staff translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report, which was supplemented with Herald wire services.