Cubans Mark Christmas as a Holiday to Honor Pope

Cubans celebrated Christmas as a public holiday for the first time in nearly three decades Thursday, with some attending church services, some making a special family meal and others just enjoying the day off.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, seeking to improve ties with the Roman Catholic Church ahead of a visit in January by Pope John Paul II, announced earlier this month that there would be a Dec. 25 holiday this year as a special gesture to honor the pontiff.

Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, addressing a packed Christmas Eve midnight Mass in Havana’s cathedral Wednesday night, welcomed the move as “important for society.”

Ortega, archbishop of Havana, also urged people to remember the message of Christmas as one of spiritual light and love, and lamented the “commercialization” of the festival.

Presiding again Thursday over a morning Mass at the cathedral that was far less crowded, Ortega spoke of Christmas as a time of love and tenderness.

Mingling with the Christmas music, the sound of nonreligious folk tunes wafted through the open doors of the cathedral from street musicians playing in the square packed with craftspeople selling their wares.

Christmas was dropped as a holiday in 1969 as Cuba, by then firmly embarked on a communist course after Castro’s revolution 10 years earlier, strove to produce a record sugar harvest.

Castro’s government has made a string of concessions in recent weeks ahead of the pope’s Jan. 21-25 visit.

Those have included granting the Christmas holiday, which the pope requested when he met Castro at the Vatican a year ago. State media last weekend published a papal message to Cubans in which he expressed his hope that the church will enjoy more latitude in Cuba after his visit.

State media made no reference to Christmas, despite the holiday.

At the midnight Mass, Ortega reminded the congregation that Cubans have continued to observe Christmas even when it was not a public holiday by attending Masses and traditional Christmas Eve dinners.