By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Oct 13 1996 (IPS)

‘Love Hopes and Waits for Everything’, a pastoral letter that further chilled the already cool relations between the Cuban government and the Catholic Church three years ago, was brought up again just when a possible visit by Pope John Paul II is being discussed.

“That letter is still waiting for a response,” wrote Orlando Marquez, the director of ‘Palabra Nueva’, the monthly publication of the Archdiocese of Havana, in his article “Love is Still Waiting.”

The latest edition of ‘Palabra Nueva’ coincided with the announcement of an official visit to Cuba by Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s secretary of state relations, which diplomats here say is to serve as a precursor to a meeting between President Fidel Castro and the Pope.

The pastoral, which was read in Cuba’s churches in September 1993, criticised the country’s political system, described the effects of the economic crisis, and detailed the decline of morals among some parts of the population.

One of the most controversial aspects of the letter, which was signed by the local bishops, was a call to unity to all Cubans, including those who lived abroad, to face the internal problems that “require urgent action” and “coherent initiatives.”

Three years later, Marquez said the Church is still waiting for a response, “which does not necessarily have to be written, but could come through manifestations of living which demonstrate that Cubans are willing to love each other.”

The article confirms observations by local analysts who say relations between the Catholic Church and the government are not going as well as it seems.

Church leaders seem to be taking a cautious approach. They say relations with the governing Communist Party depend in general on positions adopted by the Church.

That today’s relations were slightly warmer seemed to be confirmed on Sep. 19 when Castro talked for over half an hour with Papal Nuncio Beniamino Stella and the Vicar-General of Havana, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, at a reception in the Chilean Embassy.

And Cardinal Jaime Ortega said last month that differences of opinion can now be stated without creating tension, but that that does not mean it is possible to talk about “a complete normalisation” of relations.

In a Sep. 8 homily, the cardinal said the open recognition in a Communist Party document that “religious faith” is part of the life and mission of Christians was something “new.”

Ortega disappointed some and surprised others last year with an insistent call for national reconciliation as a way to solve the serious problems plaguing Cuban society, and his refusal to try to convert the Church into a political option.

“The Church could never become the opposition we don’t have in Cuba, because it would stray from its mission,” said Ortega, earning the criticism of much of the Miami-based Cuban exile community in the United States.

But last February the Church defended the right of opposition groups to hold a so-called Cuban Council, which was not authorised by the government to meet.

The bishops also protested the Feb. 24 shooting down of two small civil aircraft by the Cuban air forces. But they opposed the approval, as a reprisal by the United States, of the Helms-Burton law which seeks to expand the boycott against Cuba.

Miguel Alfonso, the spokesman for Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, told the press in September that the relations between his government and the Church are currently “closer to normality than abnormality.”

Diplomats in Havana said Tauran’s Oct. 25-29 visit is to pave the way for meeting between the Pope and Castro in November.

Castro plans to participate in the Nov. 13-17 World Food Summit in Rome, organised by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation. (The visit has not yet been officially confirmed).

He is expected to take advantage of that occasion to extend an official invitation to the Pope to visit Cuba. But sources close to local Church leaders told IPS that the meeting – if it occurs – could be “mere protocol.”

According to the sources, the Cuban government is debating the benefits a visit by the Pope could bring in terms of its image of opening to abroad, and the problems it could cause domestically.

“For a while now it has been accepted that people can be religious. But to see people acclaiming the Pope is something entirely different,” said a Catholic who added that he will believe the Pope’s visit “when he sees it.”

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