Castro Gives Cubans Christmas Present in Honor of Pope’s Visit

HAVANA — It’s beginning to look a little bit like Christmas in Communist Cuba, where President Fidel Castro has offered to make Dec. 25 an official holiday this year in honor of next month’s visit by Pope John Paul II.

The Roman Catholic committee overseeing preparations for the papal visit issued a statement Monday expressing “profound joy” at Castro’s announcement.

It also expressed hope that the holiday “will be made permanent in the near future.”

Castro’s government embraced atheism in 1962, and the Christmas holiday itself officially disappeared in 1969. Castro said then it was interfering with the 1970 sugar harvest.

So for almost three decades, Dec. 25 was just another day here. But Christmas has been slowly making a comeback since the government eliminated formal restrictions on religious worship in 1992.

Each Dec. 25 since then has seen an increasing number of Christmas trees and family parties, although the date remained a normal workday. The number of people attending Masses on Christmas Eve also has grown.

But as in much of the rest of the world, the holiday trappings are much more secular than religious.

“Instead of a nativity scene, I put out those little dolls,” said Nancy Carrero, 38, pointing to Mickey and Minnie Mouse figurines scattered beneath her 2-foot plastic tree.

And few are planning major celebrations--aside from setting out tiny artificial pine trees with tinsel and lights in a corner of their apartments.