Fidel Castro

by Volker Skierka

  The US sociologist Juan Clark from Miami-Dade Community College, an expert in Cuban religious affairs, has confirmed that there was no bloody persecution of Christians in Cuba as there had been in the revolutions in China, Mexico, and Spain.95 Church officials in Havana reported in the late nineties that “there had been a very harsh but bloodless repression, with the full force and efficiency of a totalitarian system; control through fear, not terror, crippled people.”96 Young Christians who refused to do compulsory military service were treated as “troublemakers” or “social parasites” and confined in labor camps – the so-called “military units for the support of production” (UMAPs) – along with homosexuals, male prostitutes, and common criminals. Even Jaime Ortega, the later cardinal, who in 1998 would join Castro in welcoming the Pope to Cuba, served ten months in such a camp in 1965.

  The general discrimination and marginalization directed at the Church and its active members put an end to virtually any public religious practice, as even a profession of belief in the Church was enough to arouse the suspicion of the authorities. Since the Communist Party of Cuba – contrary to Castro’s idea of an affinity between Christian social doctrine and Communism – excluded self-avowed Christians from membership, Church people were unable to involve themselves in processes of social development until the end of the 1990s. “We weren’t exactly demanding that the person had to be an atheist,” Castro said by way of justification; “we weren’t inspired by antireligious ideas. What we were demanding was complete adherence to Marxism-Leninism.” This could be achieved only because “the great masses of the people … weren’t active Catholics.” “If… the great masses of workers, farmers and university students had been active Christians, we couldn’t have formed a revolutionary party based on those premises.” In other words, in a devoutly Catholic country a Communist-style revolution would scarcely have had a chance. “But, since most of the active Catholics were well-to-do, supported the counter-revolution and left the country, we could – and had to – establish a severe, orthodox rule.”97

  The irreconcilability of Christians and materialists was connected not only with political radicalization and the gravitation of “Castroism” toward the Soviet system, but also with the reactionary encrustation and political inflexibility of the Church leadership. The main opponent of the revolution was Cardinal Arteaga, who in 1952 had given the seal of approval to Batista’s coup d’état, and who continued to embody the old ecclesiastical order until his death in March 1963.

  Only toward the end of the sixties, when a new generation of priests, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962–5), pushed the Cuban clergy into internal reforms and a greater openness to political realities, did a gradual change begin in relations with the government. The decisive signal came with the publication of two pastoral letters in the spring and summer of 1969, which condemned the US embargo and called on Catholics to support the government’s program for education and health. In November 1971, during his weeks traveling through Chile under Salvador Allende, Castro surprised a Church audience by suddenly announcing that in his view “there are ten thousand times more coincidences between Christianity and communism than between Christianity and capitalism.”98 Despite repeated setbacks, the Party and government took a crucial step forward in the mid-seventies, when they guaranteed the freedom of religion in the basic program of the Communist Party as well as Article 54 of the new Constitution. Finally, in October 1977 Castro declared that there were “no contradictions between the aims of religion and the aims of socialism.”99 Yet it remained no more than lip service. Discrimination continued against people who practiced their religion.

  It took another 15 years before a constitutional amendment of July 12, 1992, prohibited social discrimination against believers, and the fourth Congress of the CPC allowed Church members to join the Party. Castro had already pointed towards this in his 1985 discussions with Frei Betto, but had said that more time would be needed: “This must be explained to all the Party members and analyzed with all of them. It isn’t our policy to say ‘This is so’ from the top.”100 Castro had even hinted that he had a guilty conscience for what had happened over the years on this matter: “In principle, I can’t agree with any kind of discrimination. I say this very openly. If I were asked if any subtle discrimination existed against Christians, I’d say ‘Yes.’ It’s something we haven’t overcome as yet.”101 Even so, it was only six years later that the decision was taken that no one should suffer at work or in political life because of their religious beliefs.

  In January 1985 the first meeting took place between Castro and the Cuban bishops. Later that year a bureau for religious affairs was established within the Central Committee – at a time when hardly any pastoral workers were left on the island. There was then just one priest for each 53,000 Cubans, compared with seven in 1959. This meant that the Catholic Church in Cuba was by far the weakest in Latin America.102 But change seemed to be in the air when a delegation from the US Bishops’ Conference, led by Bishop James W. Malone, visited the island. In September 1985 and September 1987, Cuban bishops made return visits to the United States and spoke in favor of lifting the embargo. In 1988 Cardinal John O’Connor from New York went to Havana for three hours of talks with Fidel Castro.

  Nor did the Vatican hesitate to grasp Castro’s outstretched hand. Beginning in the mid-eighties, Church officials traveled from Rome to Havana to normalize relations with the Cuban state and Communist Party, and to give life to the declarations of intent on both sides.

  The new public leeway for the Church became evident when it issued an expression of concern in September 1993 about the political and economic conditions prevailing in the “special period:”

  Things are not good: this is a matter of public discussion. There is discontent, insecurity and hopelessness among the people. Official statements, media reports and newspaper articles allow certain aspects to show through. But the situation is worsening apace, and the only solution on offer seems to be to put up with everything, without any idea of how long it will last.103

  In these difficult times, and despite the Church’s critical attitude to the political system, the state and Party leadership began to realize that no one outside the Church could play the role of reducing tensions among the population, while also credibly representing the national component and supporting the government in its search for a solution. The turn toward the Christian faith, which more and more people made in the years of hardship, stood both the Church and the state in good stead. Gradually the Church evolved from its stance of adversary to one of partner with a leader who was still well versed in the Bible.

  This opening to the government enabled the Church, so long dependent upon the pre-revolutionary order, to develop for the first time a national identity. It thereby signaled to the militant exile organizations in Florida and their friends in Washington that it was prepared to seek a reconciliation between the two camps, laying the basis for non-violent reform of the system as soon as this came up for debate.

  In this connection, it was important that the Church leaders openly took up position against the US economic embargo. But, also in his Third World policy and his demands for a new world economic order, Castro now received the support of “his” Church.

  The gradual rapprochement between Communism and the clergy eventually led to the Pope’s visit to Cuba in January 1998, just under 20 years after Castro first invited John Paul II to stop off in Cuba on his way from an Episcopal conference in Puebla, Mexico. On that previous occasion, following immediate protests from Cuban exiles and an alternative invitation to Miami, the supreme pontiff had avoided a squabble by flying back via the (mainly Protestant) former British colony of Bahamas. By 1985, Castro was telling Frei Betto that John Paul II would certainly “be interested in having contacts with our revolutionary people,” and that he was “sure a visit by the Pope would be useful and positive for the Church and for Cuba,” as well as “for the Third World in general.”104 But t
he fact that the project took many more years to finalize indicates the mountain of difficulties that both sides had to overcome. First came Castro’s humble trek to Rome in the autumn of 1996, when he received a papal audience wearing a muted suit and tie instead of his olive-green battledress. Afterwards he described his meeting with the Holy Father as little short of a “miracle.”

  Soon the miracle was shared with the Cuban people. As the “messenger of truth and hope,” the Cuban bishops’ conference announced on November 1, 1997, that God’s deputy on earth would visit the island “in one of the most difficult moments of our history.” “The political, social and economic situation in recent years,” it went on, “will be reflected in the qualities of the papal visit, and in the future work of the Catholic Church in Cuba.”105 The head of the ten dioceses took the opportunity to call for a widening of its still tightly circumscribed sphere of public activity.

  The regime made hesitant steps to accommodate the Church. “On this Holy Night we should not sleep, we have a duty to celebrate,” Cardinal Jaime Ortega told a thousand faithful on December 25, 1997, in Havana Cathedral, where they had gathered for Christmas for the first time in nearly 30 years.106 The Pope had wanted the great Christian festival to be restored, and the Máximo Líder had given his permission as a gesture of good will. “We shall do all we can for the [Pope’s] visit to be a success,” he promised at the National Assembly. “It should also be a success for the Revolution. We would like the Pope to return to Rome feeling he has had the best trip ever to another country.”107 “The old is finished, the new has begun,” the pontiff proclaimed, alluding to the Apostle Paul, in the first papal message to the Cuban people for 38 years. And he left no doubt that he expected that, after his visit, “the Church … will continue to have the necessary freedom to fulfill its mission.”108

  All the churches in Cuba were full that Christmas night. In view of recent economic growth, the “special period” administrators exceptionally provided all that was needed for a merry Christmas in the true sense of the word. There was enough pork, rice, and black beans for Cuba’s national dish; it was even possible to buy, for dollars, Christmas flowers made of plastic (as usual in the Caribbean), Father Christmases, dolls, toys, and other modest gifts. Castro wanted it to be clear that the restoration of Christmas, for the first time since 1969, was a “special exception.” But people understood this in a very Cuban way: “An exception! Okay, fine. One exception for today, one exception for tomorrow … At least there is one. And, from one exception to the next, everything will get better.”109 And that is how it worked. The “exception” became the rule in following years.

  On Wednesday, January 21, 1998, the Holy Father finally landed at José Martí international airport and received the red carpet treatment from Fidel Castro. Again, instead of his olive-green uniform, the state and Party leader was wearing a dark two-piece suit, with a white shirt and cufflinks, and a fashionable, decently spotted tie. The Pope’s visit to Cuba was a historic event. He had already been to more than 120 countries around the world, and this was the last one on the list in Latin America.

  John Paul II spent his five days traveling around the island, whose population had meanwhile risen above 11 million, and which had a social system unparalleled in the Third World but virtually no political let alone religious freedoms. He found a Church that had more or less been lost to the faithful over the past few decades, with only some 40 percent of Cubans baptized in the Catholic faith. What had been flourishing, with varying degrees of state toleration, was syncretism. Significantly, one of the most important Masses during the preparations for the papal visit had been celebrated by Cardinal Jaime Ortega before tens of thousands of people, at the St Lazarus pilgrimage site in El Rincón near Havana. This is a religious center that mingles together Catholicism and Afro-Cuban cults, where Lazarus (under the name of Babalú-Ayé) is venerated as one of the highest gods of the santería religion, and where there is also an Aids clinic. The Pope himself stopped off there on the fourth day of his trip and presented his credentials.

  On the day after his arrival, however, the first thing he did was say Mass in Santa Clara, the town associated with the most important “saint” of the Cuban Revolution, Ernesto Che Guevara. Later stopping places included Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba, in the far east of the island. Each evening he returned to Havana, and it was there, on Sunday, January 25, that he said the final Mass before hundreds of thousands on the Plaza de la Revolución, 38 years after the Catholic conference of 1959 at which a message had been read from Pope John XXIII.

  This Pope seemed to be a stroke of good fortune for Cuba and Castro, as he already indicated at the arrival ceremony. His opening words of greeting to the Cuban people dressed up his criticism of the lack of pluralism and of the US embargo in a wish that “Cuba, with all its wonderful opportunities, may open up to the world, and the world open up to Cuba”110 – and, in the course of his visit, he made himself even clearer. At the same time, he avoided anything that might be seen as open incitement of the faithful. It was left to the many thousands of foreign reporters to read between the lines and to produce commentaries of every kind – often evidently overdrawn and owing more to their own wishful thinking than to anything the Pope had actually said. The “danger” that Cubans might pay attention to such reports was anyway rather slight, in view of the continuing constraints on the freedom of information. All they managed to hear was the Pope’s original tone of voice. At least an advance guard of Vatican diplomats and the Cuban clergy had with difficulty won agreement that all his Masses should be broadcast on nationwide television.

  Many political prisoners and their families had written to Rome for help, but when the Pope tackled the delicate issue and appealed for a large number of them to be released, he did so not on a public occasion but at a private talk in Castro’s wing on the second floor of the Palace of the Revolution, amid the decorative jungle plants from the Sierra Maestra. The meeting behind closed doors with the head of the Cuban state and Party lasted one hour. Then the Pope also met Castro’s brothers Raúl and Ramón, as well as his sisters Ángela and Augustina, in a private audience. On the way into his offices, the Cuban leader slowed his pace out of respect for the frail visitor, who had to support himself with a stick. “You see what it’s like for us over-seventies,” the 77-year-old Pope said to the 71-year-old Comandante, who looked positively sprightly by comparison.

  The Pope’s most important service, in the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, was kept until the last day of his trip. Interrupted no fewer than 38 times by loud cheers, shouts and applause, he pressed some moral truths home not only for the host standing beside him but also for the supporters of unfettered capitalism.

  The ideological and economic systems succeeding one another in the last two centuries have often encouraged conflict as a method, since their programs contained the seeds of opposition and disunity. This fact profoundly affected their understanding of man and of his relations with others. Some of these systems also presumed to relegate religion to the merely private sphere, stripping it of any social influence or importance. In this regard, it is helpful to recall that a modern state cannot make atheism or religion one of its political ordinances. The state, while distancing itself from all extremes of fanaticism or secularism, should encourage a harmonious social climate and suitable legislation which enables every person and every religious group to live its faith freely… . On the other hand, some places are witnessing the resurgence of a certain capitalist neoliberalism which subordinates the human person to blind market forces, and conditions the development of peoples on those forces. From its centers of power, such neoliberalism often places unbearable burdens upon less favored countries. Hence, at times, unsustainable economic programs are imposed on nations as a condition for further assistance. In the international community, we thus see a small number of countries growing exceedingly rich at the cost of the growing impoverishment of a great number of other countries; as a result the
wealthy grow ever wealthier, while the poor grow ever poorer.111

  The Pope’s central message, however, delivered to cheering from the crowd, contained unmistakable words of advice to the Cuban nomenklatura: “Freedom cannot be reduced to its social and political aspects alone, but acquires its fully developed form only in the exercise of the freedom of belief, the basis of all other human rights.”112

  In his farewell address at Havana airport, the Pope strongly urged both Castro and Washington to reconsider their existing policies: “In our day, no nation can live in isolation. The Cuban people therefore cannot be denied the contacts with other peoples necessary for economic, social and cultural development, especially when the imposed isolation strikes the population indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials of decent living.” In order to overcome the suffering of the people, it was necessary to end the “oppressive economic measures – unjust and ethically unacceptable – imposed from outside the country.”113

  For Castro, the papal visit was undoubtedly a great triumph of internal and external policy. But the Vatican also seems to have gained from it, if only because, nearly four decades after the revolution, Castro had recognized the Church before the whole world as a moral authority alongside the Communist Party. Some 300 prisoners were freed as a result, the Church was allowed greater space in which to hold Masses and other events, and it was able to add to the 900 men and women (including 300 priests) who made up its personnel on the eve of the papal visit. Cardinal Ortega received permission to publish the Church paper Aquí la Iglesia (“Here is the Church”) and the periodical Nueva Palabra (“New Word”). Most important of all, the Catholic Church engaged in a “Christianization drive” in 1998, when the number of baptisms shot up from 10,000 to 45,000 in the year. Its welfare organization, Caritas, drew on some 5,000 volunteers to carry out humanitarian work, especially in caring for young and old people hard hit by the problems in the economy.