When the pope steps onto this communist-ruled island in January,
he will find that the church and the government have set aside
their mutual suspicions and occasional enmity for the sake of their
institutional interests.
Fidel Castro's government hopes a successful papal visit will
help enhance its image abroad and demonstrate its tolerance for
religious practice. A windfall from the visit would be a papal
denunciation of the longtime U.S. economic embargo of Cuba.
For their part, Catholic officials hope the pope's presence will
galvanize believers on the island and help broaden the church's
influence among Cuba's 11 million people.
The Vatican said today the pope will meet with Castro in Havana
on Jan. 22, a day after John Paul arrives in Cuba.
As preparations intensify for the five-day visit, both sides
have downplayed their differences and made concessions for the sake
of harmony.
The government already has agreed to accept scores of new
foreign priests and nuns to help overworked Cuban priests. And it
has allowed the church to carry its message outdoors through a
series of widely publicized Masses that have attracted thousands of
Cubans.
Authorities also have announced that the government will provide
public transportation to papal Masses and grant the church air time
on state-run radio and TV — though Cuba's Cardinal Jaime Ortega
said such access had been far less than he would like.
Church leaders have returned the government's goodwill gestures
by avoiding criticism of Cuba's communist system and stressing the
"pastoral" nature of the pontiff's visit.
A church spokesman, Orlando Marquez, insisted to The Associated
Press that any political or social consequences of the visit will
be secondary.
He said church leaders hope the pope's tour of the island will
encourage the flock and increase Christian faith to the
"betterment of society."
Cardinal Ortega says the stakes posed by the pope's visit are
high.
"The government of Cuba has accepted before the world the
challenge that the papal visit represents and the pope, too, has
accepted that challenge by visiting Cuba," he told a recent news
conference here.
With international attention focused on the island during the
visit, the government can ill-afford any embarrassment to the pope.
Cuban officials have expressed concern that some of the foreign
journalists covering the visit will be affected by what they call
"the Miami mentality," a reference to anti-Castro sentiments
among Florida-based exiles.
Since Castro came to power in 1959, relations between the church
and the government have ranged from strained to outright hostile.
The government officially embraced atheism in 1962, and believers
have frequently been victims of discrimination, though in recent
years it has softened.
The tendency during the visit to play up the confrontation
between the island's communist leader and the anti-communist pope
will be strong but perhaps misdirected, notes Enrique Lopez Oliva,
a Cuban professor of religious history.
Castro and the pope seemed to strike up a respectful
relationship when the Cuban president visited the Vatican in 1996,
setting the stage for the visit.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, recently in Cuba for
advance planning, met for six hours with Castro, who reportedly
showed curiosity about the pope's work habits and dedication.
Castro was educated by Jesuit priests and has expressed
admiration for one of Catholicism's most prestigious religious
orders.
Interviewed for a book titled "Castro and Religion," the Cuban
leader praised his Jesuit teachers as "people with a great
capacity for discipline ... interested in forming the character of
students."
Bishop Jose Siro Gonzalez of Cuba's Pinar del Rio diocese
stressed that the church and the state have common ground for
dialogue.
"We would never ask the communists to abandon their philosophy
or their activities in society as long as the common welfare and
human rights are preserved," he wrote recently in the Catholic
magazine Vitral.
He argued that communists should not view "the social
commitment of Catholic lay persons as counterrevolutionary or
subversive activities."
© Reuters Ltd.