VATICAN CITY — In brokering the historic thaw between Cuba and the United States, Pope Francis
stepped squarely into the thorny realm of geopolitics, sending letters
to the presidents of both nations, playing host to secret meetings in
the halls of the Vatican and nudging the Cold War enemies to put a half-century of vitriol and mistrust behind them.
But as he arrives in Havana on Saturday, the first stop of a nine-day papal trip to Cuba
and the United States, Francis faces a new challenge altogether: Having
helped open up Cuba to the world, the first Latin American pope must
now try to fully open up Cuba to the Roman Catholic Church.
“It
is an occasion to ask for more openness,” said the Rev. Jorge Cela, who
oversaw the Jesuit religious order in Cuba from 2010 to 2012. “The
relationship is not easy.”
From his own experiences in the 1970s, when Argentina was ruled by a
military dictatorship, Francis knows the complexity, dangers and
difficult compromises of coexisting with repressive authorities. For
decades, the Cuban church has been wary of inciting the wrath of a
Communist government that all but marginalized it after the 1959
revolution, when priests were cast out, religious schools were closed
and the state was declared atheist.
Some
call this caution wise pragmatism, noting that the Cuban government has
gradually loosened its grip. But critics contend that the Cuban church
has been too timid — eager to maintain close ties with the government,
at the expense of speaking out for greater political and religious
freedom in Cuban society.
“We
could do more,” said the Rev. José Conrado, an outspoken Cuban priest
based in the central city of Trinidad, speaking by telephone. “The
church should not back off, even if doing so is difficult and
problematic for the church itself.”
Francis
has a global reputation for blunt talk and big symbolic gestures, so
his trip to Cuba will be closely watched. Few analysts think he will
press too hard in public, but diplomats in Rome do expect him to talk
about religious freedom, as Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI
did during past Cuba visits. Francis is expected to push for more space
for the church to operate in Cuban life — currently there are fewer
than 350 priests on an island of just over 11 million people, and the
church is forbidden from running schools or hospitals.
“Oh,
I think he will talk about human rights, religious freedom, allowing
the church to play its role not only in worship, but in social services —
the church as a partner in the development of the country,” said Ken
Hackett, the United States ambassador to the Holy See.
One
way the Cuban church has made headway in Cuba — winning public good
will and political capital in the process — is by providing food and
services to the needy, which the government itself is struggling to
afford. In turn, the government is permitting construction of some new
churches for the first time in decades, while allowing the church to
organize youth activities and concerts.
Churches
and Catholic community centers offer free lunches, clothing,
after-school classes, music groups and libraries. It even runs an M.B.A.
course from a colonial-era cultural center in Havana and publishes
magazines, including New Word, which touch on political and economic
issues as well as spiritual ones. Still, the church has no access to
Cuba’s radio waves.
There
is also a question of how much spiritual sway the church has over the
Cuban population itself. The Vatican says that 60 percent of Cubans are
Catholic, but according to the State Department, very few of them regularly attend Mass, only about 4 or 5 percent.
“What
the church recognizes today and they are addressing is that the first
thing you have to address with the Cuban people is trying to meet their
basic needs,” said Andy Gomez, a former senior fellow at the Institute
for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. “Once
you start helping them address their basic needs, food and shelter, then
you can start talking about religion, social change and some of these
other things.”
The
most powerful figure in the Cuban church is Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega
y Alamino, the archbishop of Havana, who is set to retire. Detractors
attack him as being too conciliatory to the government of President Raúl Castro. Defenders say he is astute and politically savvy in preserving the relevance of the church.
According
to Catholic clergy and lay members, Cardinal Ortega favors a slower,
smoother transition to a more democratic and market-based Cuba, a view
shared by some on and off the island who fear that a more dramatic
change could bring social and economic turmoil. But some Cuban bishops
have wanted a more confrontational approach, while other critics have
been upset by the cardinal’s public dismissals of Cuba’s political
opposition.
Ultimately,
the door slammed on the church once more as Fidel Castro grew
increasingly worried about its public activities and those of other
Christian activists seeking to reform one-party rule.
“He
felt a red line needed to be drawn against church political
involvement,” said Paul Hare, a former British ambassador to Cuba and a
professor at Boston University, describing the late 1990s. “So Cardinal
Ortega distanced himself from these activities and we see the rifts
still visible today.”
Replacing
the cardinal will be one of Francis’ most complicated and important
tasks. He will travel throughout the island, meeting different bishops
and church figures. It should allow him to make a personal evaluation of
the next potential leader of the Cuban church, though analysts do not
expect a decision soon.
“There
are not a lot of bishops in Cuba,” said Gianni La Bella, an expert in
Latin American Catholicism and a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio,
a liberal Catholic group active in international affairs. “It is not
easy to choose the right man for the place.”
That
choice will help define the position of a church that some Cuban
Catholics say is already divided between the leadership and a small but
passionate cadre of priests, many of them missionaries, who are focused
on the poor.
“There
are two visions on the role of the church,” said Dagoberto Valdés
Hernández, editor of a Catholic magazine, Convivencia, speaking by phone
from Cuba. “One that looks inside, and one — which is Pope Francis’ — which looks outside itself, into the peripheries.”
He added, “I think that our church in Cuba is still looking too much into itself.”
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