/REPEAT/CUBA-RELIGION: Not Even Pope’s Visit Escapes Effects of Crisis

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 28 1997 (IPS) - Not even the planned January visit of Pope John Paul II will escape the effects of the economic crisis gripping Cuba since 1990.

It is still not clear how the state and the local Roman Catholic Church will provide transportation, food, drinking water and sanitation services to all those wishing to see the Pontiff, and housing for those coming from abroad.

The visit of the head of the Vatican state is the first such high-level visit since the crash of the Cuban economy at the start of the decade, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the east European socialist bloc.

After a week-long visit to Cuba, which included a six-hour meeting with President Fidel Castro, Vatican spokesman Juan Navarro told reporters over the weekend that the Caribbean island nation was suffering from material shortages for handling the visit which arose from “known difficulties which are beyond the will” of the Cuban government.

“Some of those difficulties are independent of Cuban authorities,” said Navarro, in what analysts interpreted as an allusion to the 36-year-old U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.

The preparations for John Paul II’s visit coincide with signs that the Cuban economy is slowly heading towards recovery, according to local authorities, after a crisis that brought a 34.8 percent fall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 1989 to 1993.

The Pope and Castro agreed on the visit during a Nov. 19, 1996 interview in the Vatican. But nearly a year later, conditions have taken a significant turn for the worse here, with a new downturn in Cuba’s economic indicators.

Last year closed with 7.8 percent GDP growth, after the yield of sugar – the country’s leading export product – rose from 3.3 million tonnes in 1995 to 4.4 million. But the government’s economic projections have steadily dropped this year, with authorities recently recognising that growth in 1997 will be close to two percent, a far cry from earlier predictions of five percent.

Navarro said the “problems pending” – he failed to specify which ones – could be resolved by “joint” efforts by the Vatican and the Cuban government over the next three months.

John Paul II’s Jan. 21-25 visit to Cuba will include the delivery of mass in four city squares, the last one in Havana’s ‘Plaza de la Revolucion’.

In Santiago de Cuba, 970 kms east of Havana, the Pope will crown the Virgin of the Charity of Copper, considered the island’s patron saint and venerated in Afro-Cuban rites as the goddess Ochun.

But attendance at the masses could be affected by Cuba’s shortage of fuel and transport facilities, a problem the local clergy will be unable to resolve without assistance from the Vatican. Not only is there a scarcity of gasoline, which is only sold in dollars or rationed out to state entities, but the Caribbean island nation’s fleet of mass transport vehicles has significantly shrunk over the past few years.

And those coming to see the Pope from other provinces, or even nearby municipalities, will not only need transportation but food, drinking water and sanitary services.

Local observers say authorities will make a great effort to guarantee attendance by practicing Catholics, but will be hard pressed to foot the bill for a massive pilgrimage or to satisfy the desires of the curious.

But in Havana, home to 2.2 million of Cuba’s 11 million inhabitants, the ‘Plaza de la Revolucion’ is expected to be packed.

Added to the “material” problems surrounding the visit is the tension that continues to mark Church-State relations, especially with respect to the clergy’s long-standing demand for access to the media.

With only three months left before the Pontiff’s visit, it has not yet been announced whether or not his masses and other public activities in four Cuban provinces will be broadcast live by the state-controlled TV and radio stations, as requested by Church authorities.

Vatican Secretary of State Jean Louis Tauran said during an October 1996 visit to Havana that the Catholic Church not only wants space in the media in Cuba, but “its own media” as well.

As the Pope’s visit draws near, the state-controlled press has stepped up reporting on issues related to the Catholic Church and the visit. But it has not provided space for information especially prepared by journalists with ties to the Church.

One specific request that has not yet received any response is whether or not Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega will be allowed to broadcast a televised message to Cuba’s Catholics as a complement to a series of open air sermons he has been delivering with official authorisation.

The issuing of entry visas for priests and nuns also remains on hold, after an initial gesture by the government which granted some 40 permits last year.

There are around 280 Catholic priests practicing in Cuba, as well as 31 deacons, 470 nuns and 25 monks, a number the Church considers far from sufficient.

In spite of almost four decades of state-imposed atheism and the inexistence of Catholic schools, the number of people professing the Catholic faith has significantly increased in recent times. Local experts link the rise in the number of churchgoers to the governing Communist Party’s growing tolerance of religion, as well as the uncertainty triggered among the population by the economic crisis.

/REPEAT/CUBA-RELIGION: Not Even Pope’s Visit Escapes Effects of Crisis

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 28 1997 (IPS) - Not even the planned January visit of Pope John Paul II will escape the effects of the economic crisis gripping Cuba since 1990.
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