RELIGION-CUBA: Local Bishops More Critical Than Vatican

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Nov 11 2003 (IPS) - Local Roman Catholic Church authorities in Cuba tend to take a more critical stance than the Vatican towards the situation in this socialist island nation, according to some analysts.

”From John XXIII to John Paul II, there has never been criticism (from the Vatican) towards Cuba of the kind that we saw against Soviet socialism and Sandinista Nicaragua,” Jorge Ramírez Calzadilla, the head of the governmental Centre of Socio-religious Studies, told IPS.

Other researchers say Cuba’s enemy is not in Rome, but in Washington, and argue that the Pope has questioned aspects of international policy that are defended by the United States.

The Catholic Church in Cuba, on the other hand, does not hesitate in making a critical assessment of the situation in this Caribbean island nation, whether in documents produced by the local Church hierarchy or through some 50 nationally circulated publications.

In the view of Cuban sociologist Aurelio Alonso, the Church’s assessments of local reality in this socialist island nation are not untruthful, but fail to take into account the international relations that impose certain conditions on and ”give context” to Cuban reality.

”I would say the local bishops’ understanding of Cuban reality is not in line with the Vatican’s global discourse, as it is on other social questions,” said Alonso, who noted that there are no differences on issues like abortion, sexuality or celibacy.

Although some local analysts say John Paul does not reject the Cuban Church’s harsh evaluations of the situation in this country, Ramírez Calzadilla believes the stance taken by the Pope is aimed at avoiding greater tension.

He pointed out that the Church’s criticism varies according to the circumstances.

”At times when the situation in the country is less tense, the bishops’ discourse contains more recognition of shared values, but when conflicts heat up, their language becomes more critical,” he said.

In 1993, one of the toughest years of the economic crisis that hit Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the East European socialist bloc, Cuba’s bishops issued a controversial pastoral titled ”Love Hopes for All Things”.

”There is discontent, uncertainty, desperation among the population…Things are becoming rapidly and steadily worse, and the only apparent solution is to bear it,” the bishops wrote on that occasion.

Marking the 10th anniversary of the release of the pastoral last September, the bishops reiterated the document’s controversial diagnosis of the situation in Cuba.

The most widespread reaction to the problems of today ”is to try to escape, whether by going abroad, or through evasions like alcohol, drugs or even suicide,” said the bishops.

Ramírez Calzadilla observed that the current context in Cuba is marked by continued economic difficulties, increased hostility from the United States, and conflicts with the European Union.

Cuba continues to feel the impact of the international condemnation for the tough jail sentences handed down in March to 75 dissidents and the April executions of three Cubans who hijacked a passenger ferry in an attempt to defect to the United States.

According to the government of Fidel Castro, dissidents are merely a tool of U.S. policy towards Cuba, and the executions were necessary to curb a wave of hijackings of airplanes and boats in the first few months of the year, which the Cuban government said was aimed at justifying direct aggression by Washington.

Anti-Castro Cuban exile sectors criticised what they saw as the Vatican’s ”silence” on the executions of hijackers and sentences for dissidents, to which it reacted in a letter to Castro made public two weeks after it was sent on Apr. 13.

Nor were they pleased by the careful, measured language used by Vatican secretary of state Angelo Sodano to inform Castro of the Pope’s regret over the sentencing of dissidents and the executions.

The Cuban bishops’ conference, on the other hand, reacted the very day that the executions were reported – Apr. 11 – stating that ”violence cannot be fought with violence.”

”No one has the right to endanger the lives of others, as the hijackers did. But by the same token, no one should decide that someone is to be put to death as a remedy for their criminal actions,” the bishops stated in a brief communique.

But academics who specialise in the study of religion say there are no differences between the line taken by the Vatican and by Church authorities in Cuba.

”To back the position of the Cuban Catholic Church, Sodano used practically the same terms the Cuban bishops used in referring to those events,” Enrique López Oliva, secretary of the Commission for the Study of the History of the Church in Latin America, commented to IPS.

Whether in Rome or Havana, the Church prefers discretion when addressing such delicate issues as human rights, he said, adding that ”It is not seeking headlines, but results.”

Early this year, the Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega, who has been mentioned as a possible successor to John Paul, used harsh words in a pastoral to describe the situation in Cuba. ”There is no fatherland without virtue,” he said.

Ortega, 66, said it pained him that in Cuba there is ”a generalised fear about the future,” and that there are such high rates of divorce, people living together without being married, and abortion (which is provided free of charge on demand in Cuba).

”The widespread lack of hope in the possibility of a more comfortable and stable financial situation free of anxiety drives people to emigrate any way they can,” said the archbishop.

Cuban officials refrained from commenting on Ortega’s pastoral, and on statements by the bishops, who complained of ”a subtle fight against the Church” and ”official intolerance.”

”I get the impression that the government does not want to fuel the conflict,” said Ramírez Calzadilla.

But analysts interpreted the absence of Caridad Diego, head of the ruling Communist Party’s Office of Religious Affairs, in the mass given by Ortega on the 25th anniversary of John Paul’s papacy on Oct. 16 as a sign of a chill in relations with the archbishop.

Her absence at that event stood in marked contrast with her participation and that of Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque in an Oct. 23 ceremony in the apostolic nunciature to bid farewell to the papal nuncio, Mexican Archbishop Luis Robles.

Diplomats also noted that no dissidents attended the Oct. 23 reception, although they are regularly invited to European embassy celebrations of the national holidays of European Union countries, to the Cuban government’s displeasure.

According to the foreign minister, if Ortega succeeds John Paul ”when the moment arrives,” local authorities will receive the news ”with the utmost respect.”

Observers in Cuba say that in Ortega’s favour is the fact that he is a cardinal from a Communist country, where the Church has had to carry out its work in adverse conditions.

But they also predict that the successor to the ailing Karol Wojtyla, who was a cardinal from Poland before he was named Pope, will almost certainly be an Italian cardinal.

Although around 50 percent of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics live in Latin America, there are only half as many Latin American as European cardinals.

Wojtyla, the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years, since Adrian VI, visited Cuba in January 1998, and was received with great hospitality by Castro, who listened respectfully even to his most critical observations.

”For all your words, even those with which I might be in disagreement, in the name of the people of Cuba, Your Holiness, I thank you,” were the last words John Paul heard from his host before returning to the Vatican.