By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Jan 18 1998 (IPS)

An old debate over the belief of many outsiders that Christianity in Cua equates with Roman Catholicsmas in other Latin American countrieshas flared again with the impending visit of Pope John Paul II to the island.

True, churches are full and pictures of the Pope are adorning thousands of homes. Likewise church statistics reflect an increase in the number of baptisms and funerals performed according to Roman Catholic ritual.

But Catholics here still are outnumbered by other faiths – protestants and the followers of many christian sects with their origin in Africa. Still more people flock to the “santeros” – fortune tellers and astrologers – rather than attend church.

“We Cubans are like that. We don’t believe in anything, and we believe in everything,” says one 38-year-old woman.”We pray to God, but we knock on wood just in case. If someone does you any harm, you write their name on a piece of paper and put it in the freezer.”

Dressed entirely in white, as required by the Afro-Cuban cult known as ‘santeria’ or ‘Regla de Ocho’, the woman roams freely through the streets of Havana – even venturing inside Catholic churches.

She is one of the many protagonists of a process which some describe as “a revival of faith,” in the context of a new religious expression that has emerged in Cuba since the announcement of the Pope’s visit, which will take place Jan 21-25.

For other Cubans, more than a “revival” these outpourings of religious expressions are simply public revelation of sentiments kept private ever since the comunist authorities made atheism a kind of “official religion.”

Researcher Aurelio Alonso believes that the socialist experience in this country “contributes to the notion that a linear replacement of a culture of belief with a culture of atheism is groundless.”

He says that while Cuban society has become “once again or simply continues to be like in the past – basically a religious society” it would not be accurate to say it is a a predominantly Catholic society , but rather a ‘mestiza’ (mixed) society.

Even so, a pamphlet distributed at the beginning of this year by the Catholic Press Office of the Preparatory Committee for the Visit of Pope John Paul II, says that the majority of the Cuban population is Catholic.

“Without having conducted a rigorous survey, it is possible to assert that approximately 70 percent of the population (more than 11 million people) is Catholic ” the publication declared.

It said that the number of children who attend catechism classes has grown by 500 percent; people who have been baptized, confirmed and married through the Catholic Church have increased by 250 percent, and those buried according to Roman Catholic rites, 70 percent.

As an additional argument, the editors of the pamphlet say that “according to the rites of ‘santeria’, a person cannot be initiated without having been baptized as a Catholic,” and many of those “brothers” define themselves as Catholics.

“Let’s not look for divisions where there aren’t any,” said Cuban cardinal Jaime Ortega at a press conference in December in asserting “there is no dividing line” between those who practice Afro-Cuban religions and Roman Catholics.

Opinions remain divided, however, even within the Catholic Church itself. The director of the Archdiocese Study Center in Havana, Father Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, argues that “most people (in Cuba) believe in God, but according to my own personal disputable opinion, only a minority is Catholic.”

The challenge for the Catholic church lay in “the readiness with which the Cuban people believe in anything, in many things, even things that are incompatible,together with a certain volatility and inconsistency that has always characterized us,” he said.

Several specialized studies concur in identifying the most common form of religion on the island as a “spontaneous and unorganized” form of spirituality, rather than strictly Catholic. A study conducted by the Department of Socio-Religious Studies of the Center for Psychological and Sociological Studies (CIPS) showed that at the end of the 1980s, more than 65 percent of the population included some religious aspects in their world view.

According to Jorge Ramirez, a researcher at CIPS, the population which defines itself as “religious” could be as high as 85 percent, if one counts the presence of any religious elements, even if only tenuous.

People who said they had no religious elements whatsoever in their world views represented only 13.6 percent of the sample, while those with the highest forms of religious identity represented 14.2 percent.

According to Ramirez, the actively Catholic population did not reach two percent in the 1980s, but the situation has changed in recent years.

Researchers’ observations of the pilgrimages that took place on Saint Lazarus’ Day, last month reflected an increase in the number of participants from 68,800 in 1988 to 97,000 in 1995.

The number of baisms increased from 26,534 in 1986 to 70,081 in 1994, though experts believe that that figure averages out to about 70,000 a year. But they also add that the practice of baptism is not necessarily an indicator of Catholicism, but rather of religiosity in a generic sense.

Church sources assert that, in Cuba, there are 4.8 million people who are baptized – less than half of the islands inhabitants.

According to historian Enrique Lopez, Cuba has “64 functioning Catholic churches and chapels, 948 non-Catholic churches and temples – most of them smaller than the former – 548 houses of Evangelical worship, and about 3,000 unauthorized places of worship.”

The CIPS study states that it is impossible to estimate the number of practitioners of the so-called “synchretic cults”. In ten provinces, the study found 524 houses where spirit cults were held, drawing more than 7,000 members.

The religious landscape in Cuba is made up of the Catholic church, a wide spectrum of Protestant churches, African religious expressions, spiritist cults and traditions brought in through immigration.

A national survey conducted by the University Catholic Association in 1954 – before the revolution – demonstrated that 96.5 percent of the population believed in God, that 72.5 percent identified as Catholic, and 24 percent attended church regularly.

According to Cespedes, back then, “the santeros identified themselves as Catholic” but only 0.5 percent of those surveyed in 1954 said they were santeros.

Local experts estimate that the particularity of the Cuban case with its crossed cultures makes it almost impossible to assert that someone is Catholic only because they baptize their children or attend mass.

The most popular Catholic celebrations are precisely those in which the images coincide with the ‘orishas’, or the most venerated African gods: Caridad de Cobre (Ochun), the Virgin of Mercedes Obatala) and Saint Lazarus (Babalu Aye).

Father Cespedes and Alonso, who in the 60s held a public controversy on religious issues, now have doubts about the surveys on both sides of the debate.

Cespedes says he does not trust the scientific methods of the CIPS study; but he does believe that the responses were “sincere,” as being religious in Cuba was not viewed positively until the beginning of this decade.

Until the beginning of the 1990s, the State efined itself as atheist; calling oneself a believer was automatically identified with ignorance or, in the worst case, contrary to the government of Fidel Castro.

Alonso has a similar argument when evaluating the survey conducted before the triumph of the revolution in 1959. “We are talking about a world in which saying I am Catholic’ was a sign of prestige,” he says.

A workshop held at the University of Havana concluded that most Cubans hold some kind of spiritual belief and, above all, turn to religion in search of practical solutions to daily problems.

Excerpt:

By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Jan 14 1998 (IPS)

An old debate over the belief of many outsiders that Christianity in Cuba equates with Roman Catholicsmas in other Latin American countrieshas flared again with the impending visit of Pope John Paul II to the island.

True, churches are full and pictures of the Pope are adorning thousands of homes. Likewise church statistics reflect an increase in the number of baptisms and funerals performed according to Roman Catholic ritual.

But Catholics here still are outnumbered by other faiths – protestants and the followers of many christian sects with their origin in Africa. Still more people flock to the “santeros” – fortune tellers and astrologers – rather than attend church.

“We Cubans are like that. We don’t believe in anything, and we believe in everything,” says one 38-year-old woman.”We pray to God, but we knock on wood just in case. If someone does you any harm, you write their name on a piece of paper and put it in the freezer.”

Dressed entirely in white, as required by the Afro-Cuban cult known as ‘santeria’ or ‘Regla de Ocho’, the woman roams freely through the streets of Havana – even venturing inside Catholic churches.

She is one of the many protagonists of a process which some describe as “a revival of faith,” in the context of a new religious expression that has emerged in Cuba since the announcement of the Pope’s visit, which will take place Jan 21-25.

For other Cubans, more than a “revival” these outpourings of religious expressions are simply public revelation of sentiments kept private ever since the comunist authorities made atheism a kind of “official religion.”

Researcher Aurelio Alonso believes that the socialist experience in this country “contributes to the notion that a linear replacement of a culture of belief with a culture of atheism is groundless.”

He says that while Cuban society has become “once again or simply continues to be like in the past – basically a religious society” it would not be accurate to say it is a a predominantly Catholic society , but rather a ‘mestiza’ (mixed) society.

Even so, a pamphlet distributed at the beginning of this year by the Catholic Press Office of the Preparatory Committee for the Visit of Pope John Paul II, says that the majority of the Cuban population is Catholic.

“Without having conducted a rigorous survey, it is possible to assert that approximately 70 percent of the population (more than 11 million people) is Catholic, ” the publication declared.

It said that the number of children who attend catechism classes has grown by 500 percent; people who have been baptized, confirmed and married through the Catholic Church have increased by 250 percent, and those buried according to Roman Catholic rites, 70 percent.

As an additional argument, the editors of the pamphlet say that “according to the rites of ‘santeria’, a person cannot be initiated without having been baptized as a Catholic,” and many of those “brothers” define themselves as Catholics.

“Let’s not look for divisions where there aren’t any,” said Cuban cardinal Jaime Ortega at a press conference in December in asserting “there is no dividing line” between those who practice Afro-Cuban religions and Roman Catholics.

Opinions remain divided, however, even within the Catholic Church itself. The director of the Archdiocese Study Center in Havana, Father Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, argues that “most people (in Cuba) believe in God, but according to my own personal disputable opinion, only a minority is Catholic.”

The challenge for the Catholic church lay in “the readiness with which the Cuban people believe in anything, in many things, even things that are incompatible, together with a certain volatility and inconsistency that has always characterized us,” he said.

Several specialized studies concur in identifying the most common form of religion on the island as a “spontaneous and unorganized” form of spirituality, rather than strictly Catholic. A study conducted by the Department of Socio-Religious Studies of the Center for Psychological and Sociological Studies (CIPS) showed that at the end of the 1980s, more than 65 percent of the population included some religious aspects in their world view.

According to Jorge Ramirez, a researcher at CIPS, the population which defines itself as “religious” could be as high as 85 percent, if one counts the presence of any religious elements, even if only tenuous.

People who said they had no religious elements whatsoever in their world views represented only 13.6 percent of the sample, while those with the highest forms of religious identity represented 14.2 percent.

According to Ramirez, the actively Catholic population did not reach two percent in the 1980s, but the situation has changed in recent years.

Researchers’ observations of the pilgrimages that took place on Saint Lazarus’ Day, last month reflected an increase in the number of participants from 68,800 in 1988 to 97,000 in 1995.

The number of baptisms increased from 26,534 in 1986 to 70,081 in 1994, though experts believe that that figure averages out to about 70,000 a year. But they also add that the practice of baptism is not necessarily an indicator of Catholicism, but rather of religiosity in a generic sense.

Church sources assert that, in Cuba, there are 4.8 million people who are baptized – less than half of the islands inhabitants.

According to historian Enrique Lopez, Cuba has “646 functioning Catholic churches and chapels, 948 non-Catholic churches and temples – most of them smaller than the former – 548 houses of Evangelical worship, and about 3,000 unauthorized places of worship.”

The CIPS study states that it is impossible to estimate the number of practitioners of the so-called “synchretic cults”. In ten provinces, the study found 524 houses where spirit cults were held, drawing more than 7,000 members.

The religious landscape in Cuba is made up of the Catholic church, a wide spectrum of Protestant churches, African religious expressions, spiritist cults and traditions brought in through immigration.

A national survey conducted by the University Catholic Association in 1954 – before the revolution – demonstrated that 96.5 percent of the population believed in God, that 72.5 percent identified as Catholic, and 24 percent attended church regularly.

According to Cespedes, back then, “the santeros identified themselves as Catholic” but only 0.5 percent of those surveyed in 1954 said they were santeros.

Local experts estimate that the particularity of the Cuban case with its crossed cultures makes it almost impossible to assert that someone is Catholic only because they baptize their children or attend mass.

The most popular Catholic celebrations are precisely those in which the images coincide with the ‘orishas’, or the most venerated African gods: Caridad de Cobre (Ochun), the Virgin of Mercedes Obatala) and Saint Lazarus (Babalu Aye).

Father Cespedes and Alonso, who in the 60s held a public controversy on religious issues, now have doubts about the surveys on both sides of the debate.

Cespedes says he does not trust the scientific methods of the CIPS study; but he does believe that the responses were “sincere,” as being religious in Cuba was not viewed positively until the beginning of this decade.

Until the beginning of the 1990s, the State defined itself as atheist; calling oneself a believer was automatically identified with ignorance or, in the worst case, contrary to the government of Fidel Castro.

Alonso has a similar argument when evaluating the survey conducted before the triumph of the revolution in 1959. “We are talking about a world in which saying I am Catholic’ was a sign of prestige,” he says.

A workshop held at the University of Havana concluded that most Cubans hold some kind of spiritual belief and, above all, turn to religion in search of practical solutions to daily problems.

Excerpt: