CUBA: Church Blames Defections on Pressure from People in Canada

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Aug 7 2002 (IPS) - The Roman Catholic Church in Cuba blamed Wednesday the recent defection of 23 members of a group of youngsters who travelled to Canada to take part in an encounter with Pope John Paul II on pressure exerted by people residing in Canada.

Bishop Carlos Baladrón, of the Guantánamo-Baracoa diocese at the extreme eastern tip of Cuba, said the heavy coverage of the defections of 23 young Cubans showed that a religious event like the one in Toronto and the decision to emigrate “can be taken advantage of by those who advocate specific political interests,” he warned.

He also pointed out that “several dozen youngsters from other countries in the so-called Third World made a similar decision” to stay in Canada.

Baladrón confirmed that the rest of the Cuban delegation, made up of 200 people, had returned home in two groups. The first arrived in Havana on Jul 30, while the second had to wait three extra days for a flight out of Canada, and returned on Aug 2.

The delegation – the largest ever to receive authorisation from Cuba’s communist government to attend a Catholic gathering abroad – took part in Pope John Paul’s 17th World Youth Day from Jul 23-28, which drew 500,000 representatives from 150 countries.

A young resident of Havana who left the delegation on Aug 1 brought the number of young Catholics who decided not to return to this socialist island nation to 23.

“The Church respects decisions in matters that are as personal as deciding to emigrate, but it cannot fail to express its distress over this situation…especially due to the circumstances under which it occurred,” said Baladrón, the president of the youth commission of Cuba’s conference of Catholic bishops.

The bishop stated that from the start of the delegation’s stay in Canada, “there was a notable effort by some people living there, who were not involved in the event, to urge the Cuban representatives not to return home.

“Never before has a delegation of the Catholic Church found itself involved in a similar situation,” he added.

But other sources said this is not the first time that members of Cuban delegations attending international religious meetings have used the occasion to defect.

The sources said that many people, especially youngsters, chose that route given the difficulty of legally emigrating from Cuba.

“The paperwork can be far too costly if you don’t have a family member abroad to help pay for it,” said a Protestant church youth leader. “In addition, getting a visa for personal motives is much more difficult.”

A former university professor commented that it was frequent for “groups of Cuban exiles opposed to the government of Fidel Castro to urge members of such missions to defect.”

The former professor said the majority of young Catholics who apparently hid out in the homes of Cubans living in Toronto in order to ask for asylum were from provinces in eastern Cuba, which have been hit especially hard by the more than decade-long severe economic crisis.

“I believe this has been a hard blow for the Catholic Church in Cuba, and we hope it does not affect the future possibilities of religious believers to travel abroad,” said journalist Enrique López Oliva, a self-professed Catholic.

In his communique, Baladrón expressed his gratitude for “the facilities and goodwill” of authorities in Cuba and Canada to guarantee the Cuban delegation’s attendance at this year’s World Youth Day.

Emigration by “those seeking certain opportunities that they cannot find in their own country” is one of the social problems of concern to the Catholic Church in Cuba, due in part to its effect on families, he added.

More than 1.2 million people of Cuban origin live in the United States alone, according to official figures from that country.

Statistics from the governmental Department of Socio-Religious Studies in Cuba indicate that 85 percent of the country’s 11 million people have some kind of religious inclination, whether as part of an organised Catholic or Protestant church, or as part of Cuba’s popular animistic-based sects, while 15 percent say they are atheists.

Of those who consider themselves Catholic, around three percent attend mass regularly, 15 percent do so from time to time, and 60 percent have been baptised in the Catholic Church.

The constitution was modified over a decade ago to make Cuba a secular, rather than atheist, state, and religious believers were allowed to join the ruling Communist Party for the first time. Several members of churches hold seats in the National Assembly (parliament).

Local Catholic authorities say there is no repression. Meanwhile, they continue to fight for greater access to the government-controlled media, and for the right to open parochial schools.