‘Cult of Elian’ Devotees Hold Out Hope for a Miracle

In Washington and Havana, among the powerful who are deciding the fate of Elian Gonzalez, what’s at stake is the rule of law.

But in Cuban Miami on this Palm Sunday, the fight is about something closer to a Cuban’s Catholic heart: It’s about a little boy who, in the months since he was pulled from the shark-infested waters that claimed his mother, has become a potent symbol as much religious as political.

As palm fronds are fashioned into crosses and a week dedicated to resurrection and renewal begins, the religious fervor surrounding Elian Gonzalez is running headlong into a political and judicial stalemate over his fate.

This is a week for little boys and miracles, the pious saying rosaries outside the house of the 6-year-old will tell you. It may also be a week when the boy they pray will stay here is taken away.

“With this Holy Week approaching we are asking that God penetrates the hearts of our governors to save the future of this miracle child,” said Pedro Cruz, 42, a hotel worker standing near the center of the crowd keeping vigil at the home where Elian is staying.

“We pray that God, who brought him here out of the waters, can protect him. He is a child. And he deserves to live in liberty.”

As the religious fervor mounts, the political and the pious have become inextricably intertwined. Today there are the fronds of Palm Sunday. Monday, as everyone in Little Havana knows, is the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs, the unsuccessful 1961 invasion of Cuba by U.S.-backed Cuban exiles aimed at ousting Fidel Castro.

Castro won that time, the Cubans gathered here say, clenching their fists. This time the man they call the Devil cannot win.

Max Castro, a prominent sociologist at the University of Miami, believes the combination of piety and politics makes compromise unlikely.

“These kinds of religious manias are nothing new in history. But what’s unique here is the combination of the religious mania with a political crusade,” he said. “You’ve got believers and you’ve got manipulators in this cult of Elian. When you put the two together what you get is the devil Fidel and the angel Elian and you cannot consider sending the angel back into the devil’s lair.”

Elian’s great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, who has cared for Elian in his home for months and who has refused to turn him over to his father, became the latest to combine the religious and the political. In an open letter released in his name Friday, he called for a halt to government efforts to reunite Elian with his father during Holy Week.

“This will be the first Easter for Elian in liberty,” the letter said. “In contrast with children in Cuba, who are not permitted to celebrate this special Christian moment, Elian can attend church services and sit together with his family to celebrate the Holy Week. This is a gift.”

The custody struggle is in the hands of the federal appeals court in Atlanta, which issued a temporary injunction Thursday blocking Elian from leaving the country. The Justice Department also agreed that day to hold off on reuniting Elian with his father for a few days.

The government wants the appeals court to suspend the injunction and order the 6-year-old’s great-uncle to hand him over. The relatives want the court to let them meet with Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, without being required to let Elian go.

The Justice Department dismissed charges by the Miami relatives that Juan Miguel was abusive toward his son or former wife, who died in the escape to Florida, saying that he is a “fit and loving father.”

President Clinton, touring the Sequoia National Forest in California, said he supported Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s attempts to reunite Elian with his father.

“I strongly support her effort,” Clinton said. “We have to let the court cases be decided. But I think the main thing is I hope all the people who came to the United States because we have freedom and rule of law will observe the rule of law.”

While the custody battle plays out in the political arena and in the courts, here on this block of tiny houses west of the Orange Bowl and near the beat of Flegler Street, Little Havana’s main drag, los Cubanos say miracles are possible.

It started months ago, the drumbeat of happenstance and circumstance that has been woven by the crowds here into a tapestry of miracles.

There was the rescue from the roiling waters off Miami on el dia de las Gracias--Thanksgiving--the day of St. Cecilia, patron saint of music.

By fishermen, men like Jesus’ apostles. Unharmed, a little boy who somehow clung to an inner tube under a blazing sun for 48 hours.

“He was saved by the love of God,” the demonstrators whisper over and over. “He is a golden child.”

Every morning for months the mothers come out, dressed in black, to say rosaries for the Gonzalez boy. Some hold crucifixes aloft. Others bend their knees in prayer. Sometimes there is a priest from a Cuban church, or a minister from one of the city’s evangelical Protestant congregations.

Everywhere there are the images of Elian. Elian with a statue of the Christ child in the manger. Elian in the roiling waters. Elian being held in the arms of the Virgin Mary.

When an oily smudge appeared on a bank window near the home where Elian has been staying, people were quick to say they had seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Then the Virgin of Guadalupe was said to have appeared in the mirror of Elian’s bedroom.

“It happened,” said Blanca Mesa, 45, who says she comes out frequently to the Gonzalez house to pray for the little boy. “This child left the devil that is Fidel Castro. And now the Virgin has come to keep him here.”