Catholic Church Rallies Masses in Cuba

Pope John Paul II’s portrait graced the outer wall of the 283-year-old Roman Catholic church in this small town near Havana on Sunday, while, inside, hundreds of clapping, singing, weeping faithful heard Cardinal Jaime Ortega deliver a homily that just might have landed him in jail less than a decade ago.

“Don’t be afraid,” the green-robed Cuban prelate beseeched the faithful. “Open your doors to Christ.” And on Jan. 25, 1998, he commanded, “Bejucal must come to Havana”--by bus, bicycle or foot.

When his homily ended, just before hundreds of Cubans took the sacraments in Bejucal’s Spanish colonial church and in its overflowing doorways, the priests led the worshipers in a round of rhythmic chanting that will fill the air of the Cuban capital a few months from now: “Juan Pablo! Our friend! The people are with you!”

It is a scene that will play itself out every weekend throughout Havana and its outskirts in the months ahead, as this nation prepares for the first visit of a pope since Fidel Castro and his Communist revolutionaries overthrew a capitalist regime and suppressed the oligarchic church that supported it in 1959.

These are “campaign Masses,” dramatic signs of the times in a changing Cuba. They are among the bold steps that the Catholic Church here is taking to awaken its faithful before John Paul’s scheduled four-day January visit.

The pope’s trip to Havana and three other Cuban cities will be the culmination of a gradual religious opening by Cuba’s strident Communist leaders. It began soon after the Jesuit-educated Castro started speaking openly about religion in the mid-1980s for the first time since the revolution.

After decades of religious repression, Cuba’s Communists formally changed course at their fourth party congress in 1991, officially approving religious worship--not only for Catholics and Protestants but also for believers in African religions.

In addition to the 14 sanctioned, weekly public “campaign Masses” that Ortega has scheduled in Havana-area churches before the pope arrives, scores of Catholic lay people are going door to door to pitch the virtues of Catholicism over the “superstitions and false beliefs” of pagan worship--and to reinforce the government’s sanction of open worship.

While Cuban priests report that they are performing baptisms at a record pace these days and there are other signs of increasing religious fervor, the most recent Mass in Bejucal demonstrated how sensitive this reawakening remains in a tightly controlled society whose government is still committed to communism.

Religious leaders said the Mass was to be said outside the Bejucal church, as have the three before it and the 10 that will follow starting Saturday in another Havana suburb. At the last moment, without explanation, the event was moved indoors, a decision local parishioners called “political” in a week when the government was promoting not religion but massive public celebrations for revolutionary hero Che Guevara.

Caritad Diego, chief of the Communist Party’s Office of Religious Affairs, denied that, asserting that Bejucal never had planned an outdoor Mass. Diego described the events as “a trial” for the papal ceremonies. “Both the church and the state have a great interest that these will not be manipulated by persons who are not even believers,” she said--a clear reference to political dissidents.

But Diego added: “This is the best moment in the history of relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban state because we have overcome the contradictions and difficulties that took place after the triumph of the revolution.

“Religion,” she said, “is not an enemy of the revolution.”