Religion and Rebuilding on the Island
Victor Gaetan
February 27, 2012
When Pope Benedict XVI visits Cuba next month, he will once again
reinforce a strategy that the Vatican has allowed the local Catholic
Church there to pursue for more than three decades: diligently avoid any
political confrontation with the Castro regime, collaborate with Havana
to combat the U.S.-led embargo, and support the Cuban government's
incremental economic reforms. In exchange, the Church has been able to
maintain a certain amount of autonomy on the island, allowing it to
rebuild its presence and position for the possible post-Castro economic
boom times to come.
It is a controversial balance. Cubans in the exile community vigorously
criticize the Church because they think Church leadership on the island
should challenge the dictatorship. But the Vatican takes the long view.
Rather than overtly push for change, the Church has come to pursue a
strategy of "reconciliation." It has inserted itself as mediator between
the regime and its most daring opponents, both those imprisoned and
those out in the streets. The Church is present and persistent, but it
is nonpartisan. The attitude harkens back to the ostpolitik it practiced
during the Cold War -- in most communist countries, especially in those
where Catholics were a minority, clergy hunkered down, ministered to the
faithful, and survived. Today, in countries ranging from Albania and
Montenegro to Romania and Ukraine, Catholic communities are thriving.
According to Vatican sources engaged with Cuba, the Church remembers its
experience helping to steer a peaceful transition from communism to
democracy in Poland.
The Church has a storied past on the island. Think back to Pope John
Paul II's historic visit to Cuba in 1998. The occasion marked a
milestone -- it was the first time a pope ever set foot on the island --
but the underlying history was tragic: After taking power, Fidel Castro
jailed, killed, or exiled 3,500 Catholic priests and nuns. His regime
confiscated seminaries and nationalized all Catholic properties. The
first Cuban cardinal, Manuel Arteaga y Betancourt, took refuge in the
Argentinian embassy. From 1959 to 1992, Cuba was officially an atheist
state.
Then, with the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, Castro lost his
massive subsidies from Moscow. Facing near starvation and isolation, he
decided to pursue John Paul II, visiting him at the Vatican in 1996 and
inviting him to Cuba. By opening to the Church, Castro hoped to gain
recognition and trade. The pope won approval to build a new seminary,
and, in addition to offering mass in four cities, he declared, "May
Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself up to the world,
and may the world open itself up to Cuba."
In the years since, the Catholic Church in Cuba has been resurrected. It
has nearly doubled the number of priests and nuns in the country, most
of them moving in from abroad. Today, Havana regularly grants the Church
permits and allows purchase of rationed construction materials to
renovate churches. The Church provides everyday services such as daycare
centers and care for the elderly. It teaches religion and computer
skills, and screens foreign films for teenage groups. As long as the
Church restricts its activities to its property, it gets relatively free
reign. The Church even opened a new seminary a few miles south of Havana
in November 2010, the first church constructed since the revolution. And
alongside a large American Catholic delegation, President Raúl Castro
attended the dedication.
Next month, Pope Benedict XVI will make a pilgrimage to Santiago de
Cuba, on the eastern end of the island, to visit the shrine of the
Virgin of Charity, Cuba's patron saint. Benedict aims to highlight the
long history linking the Church with Cuba, as well as its current
rapprochement: Raúl Castro will greet the pontiff in Santiago, then meet
with him later in Havana. The pope will offer two outdoor masses, in
Santiago and Havana, both in "Revolution Squares." Hundreds of thousands
of worshippers are expected.
In many ways, this pilgrimage is a continuation of John Paul II's visit:
a reaffirmation of the Church's love for Cuba and a gesture designed to
bless its future. That might seem pointless to secular analysts, but it
is the essence of a "pastoral" visit: The leader comes to encourage a
weary population. For Fidel and Raúl Castro, aged 85 and 81,
respectively, it is the end of a biological era, and the Jesuit-educated
brothers seem to be embracing their natal identity despite branding it
imperialist during the revolution. Washington, and the Cuban exile
community, are watching to see if the pope will meet with opposition
figures, although local Church leaders have been famously cold to them.
Orchestrating the visit is Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, the
75-year-old archbishop of Havana. Named bishop by John Paul II in 1978,
archbishop in 1981, then Cuba's second cardinal in 1994, Ortega's life
reflects the trials of the Church: He studied for the priesthood in Cuba
and Quebec, then was forced to work in an island labor camp between 1966
and 1967. Ortega has pioneered the Church's reconciliation strategy on
the island, and accordingly, his tenure has proved a sort of political
tightrope walk.
Ortega's most intense struggle of late came in 2010, after the death of
Orlando Zapada Tamayo, a political prisoner who had been on a hunger
strike for 85 days. Zapata's death galvanized the opposition in Havana,
including the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), a group of female
relatives of many political prisoners. (After Sunday mass every week,
dressed in white, they march to a park, where they silently protest.
Their walks are one of the capital's most visible symbols of peaceful
resistance.) After Zapata's death, the Damas enlarged the protest to
downtown streets, where thuggish mobs (suspected of being government
connected) assaulted, shoved, and spat on the women. When the Damas
returned to their silent protests, the mob followed and blocked them
from walking. What had started out as a small, daring public testimonial
to private suffering had morphed into a gender-based riot. Then more
prisoners joined the hunger strike. Projected around the world, the
images suggested a Cuba on the verge of violent change.
Ortega stepped in. By his telling, he wrote a letter to Raúl Castro in
May asking that the Damas de Blanco be allowed to march peacefully. Just
three days later, government officials called him to arrange a meeting
with the women, and the Damas had a chance to request their sick
relatives either be released or moved closer to home. Ortega continued
to negotiate with the government until July, when he announced he had
struck a deal with Castro to release prisoners.
But in the end, Ortega diluted the opposition's victory with some tough
rhetoric. Not long after the prisoner release announcement, he visited
Washington to receive a $100,000 prize from the Knights of Columbus. In
his acceptance speech, he astounded Cuba watchers by referring to the
jailed democracy activists as "convicts," who were -- in words that were
clearly soothing to ears in the Castro regime -- "considered prisoners
of conscience by Amnesty International."
Then he did the rounds in Washington. He briefed U.S. National Security
Adviser James Jones and Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela. The prelate even spent more than
an hour in a secret meeting with Newt Gingrich, presumably to press for
support and discuss the former speaker of the House's upcoming bid for
the White House. Ortega argued that prisoner release should pave the way
for closer U.S.-Cuban relations, including lifting the trade embargo.
Within six months after his visit, the White House had lifted
restrictions on travel for academic, religious, and cultural groups.
Through the end of the year, Havana set free more than 100 political
prisoners -- provided they accept exile.
Playing the role of holy reconciler has afforded the Vatican three
advantages. The Church has gained physical and operational space to
expand its presence on the island. Second, Ortega has brokered conflict,
which fulfills the Church's mission ("Blessed be the peacemakers," the
Bible reads) and gives it a recognized role, both in the country and
outside. And lastly, and perhaps most important, in taking the long
view, the Vatican is laying the groundwork so that it helps facilitate a
nonviolent post-Castro transition.
According to Vatican sources engaged with Cuba, the Church remembers its
experience helping to steer a peaceful transition from communism to
democracy in Poland. That process was a negotiation between the regime,
the Church, and its allies in a daring lay Catholic movement, the
Solidarity movement, which was the trade union at the vanguard of
political change. But the analogy is weak because the Cuban Church has
failed to foster an authentic grass-roots democracy movement. Since the
late 1990s, a devout Catholic, Oswaldo Paya, has led a democracy
movement inspired by the Polish example called the Varela Project. Some
even call Paya "the Walesa of Cuba," alluding to the Polish visionary
Lech Walesa. Paya has been received by John Paul II and awarded the
Sakharov Prize for human rights by the European Union. Yet despite his
growing reputation, the Cuban Church has done nothing to support or
encourage him or his movement.
The Church is also trying to inch the Castros along the path to
liberalizing the lifeless Cuban economy. It offers classes in accounting
and small business skills. It is co-sponsoring an M.B.A. program in
Havana with a Spanish university. The elite below Castro have their own
game plan, though, betting on a bigger bang. Anticipating a future
transfer of wealth much like the Russian post-communist experience when
the apparatchiks became oligarchs, Castro relatives and army brass run
tourism, energy, foreign trade, and real estate sectors.
When Washington looks at Cuba, however, it does not see 1980s Poland as
much as a unique twenty-first-century American problem. Of course, in
Poland, Washington worked closely with the Church and a lay movement
toward democracy. Today, the White House supports individual bloggers
and has focused on reducing travel and financial barriers between the
island and the United States. Although Ortega will continue to advocate
for an end to the embargo, it is not likely as long as Cuba holds an
American in jail and a large opposition in the U.S. Congress holds firm.
The risk the Church runs in a post-Castro future is that it will be
castigated for having made a pact with the devil. After the democratic
transition in Poland, some 15 percent of the clergy were accused of
cooperating with the communists. They were subsequently sidelined.
Likewise, the next generation in Cuba might not take the time to
acknowledge the Church's sacrificial role. On that score, the Church
will have to reconcile its own position.
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