CUBA: “To the Square With the Pope!”

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jan 19 1998 (IPS) - Everyone in Cuba is talking of Pope John Paul II’s arrival Wednesday, leaving the normally juicy topics of daily shortages, common gossip and the exile of a baseball star unattended.

“Everything is going to be better,” said Ramon Gonzalez, an independent worker who described the feeling on the island in recent days as something like a mixture of euphoria, happiness, or, simply, a great deal of hope.

“The only thing lacking is a public summons saying ‘To the square with the Pope!,’ instead of ‘To the square with Fidel!,’ said a 51 year old woman Communist Party (PCC) militant at the bus stop.

“The square is going to be full in any case,” she added.

Thousands of people in Havana and most of the tourists arriving in the Cuban capital these days pass through the ‘Plaza de la Revolucion’ (the Revolution Square), the scene of the most important speeches made by President Fidel Castro in the last 39 years.

There, between the monument to the national hero, Jose Marti and the monumental image of the guerrilla fighter Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, a crucifix is being erected where John Paul II will hold the last of his four masses in the country, Sunday.

Contrary to speculations the Fidel Castro government would do everything possible to prevent a visit from the Holy Father, the authorities gave the green light to an unprecedented offensive this month.

To the surprise of many on the island, Castro personally presented an image of the Pope as the “angel of the poor” before the television cameras, calling on the Cubans to attend the planned masses.

Official union weekly ‘Trabajadores,’ announced paid public holidays for the Papal arrival and mass.

The weekly also published the route the Pope will take the day of his arrival and details for “the popular welcome,” including an area of movement for each municipal area in the capital.

“We must give the Pope a great reception with the participation of all the people, Catholic and non-Catholic, believer and non-believer,” said Castro on January 16, emphasising his opinion that John Paul II’s 81st trip should be “the best” ever.

“The Pope has never come to Cuba and will never come again. Of course I’m going to the square,” said one official from a central State body, adding that as a PCC militant it was her duty to attend.

When any two friends meet in the street these days they are bound to ask; “have you heard the latest Pope joke.”

The Cubans, accustomed to laughing even in the face of the toughest adversity, have started telling jokes where the Pope is God, Castro the devil, and Cuba “a people who are still alive thanks only to a miracle.”

“I don’t think the arrival of the Pope will bring an end to the crisis, but I do think everything will have to be better, that the people are going to be better,” said Yanelis Gomez, an 18 year-old Catholic who spent her Sunday afternoon distributing posters of welcome for John Paul II.

At the other extreme, one 17 year-old youth said he hoped “the Pope will do away with the (US) embargo to see if things get better,” listing his needs for “good clothes, a music centre and more places to go out and have fun.”

Opinions on the impact of the visit to the island go from “nothing at all is going to happen” to the extremely hopeful “nothing will be the same.” But from one extreme to the other, most people appear to agree the Pope is no threat to the communist system on the island.

For Elizardo Sanchez, leader of the opposition Cuban Human Rights and Reconciliation Commission, “no miracles will come from this visit. The situation is very complicated.”

Even so, she is hoping the government will “take advantage of this event to undertake gradual transformations to take the country out of its present situation of crisis.”

Researcher of religious issues, Aurelio Alonzo said the visit would serve to strengthen the institutional role of the Catholic Church and would, in fact, be an unprecedented promotion of Christianity in this country.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Jaime Ortega stressed the image of the Papal visit as a pastoral event and, at the same time describing the future of the Catholic Church in Cuba as “a source of hope which will take the country along unexpected paths.”

“Whatever happens, in the last months we gained in something which is difficult to undo, we gained in tolerance,” said popular singer, Jorge Garcia. “And this would be a wonderful result of the Papal visit to Cuba, even if there is no other,” he said.