Cuban president meets with church leader

Posted on Thursday, 05.20.10
Cuban president meets with church leader
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press Writer

HAVANA -- President Raul Castro has held a rare sit-down with Cuba's
Roman Catholic cardinal and another top cleric, discussing many issues
including a recent crackdown against dissidents that ended only after
the mediation of the church.

The meeting with Cardinal Jaime Ortega and Archbishop Dionisio Garcia
was a sign of the church's growing influence on the island. The talks
went on for more than four hours, Garcia told The Associated Press on
Thursday. Garcia, the archbishop of Santiago, is also leader of the
Conference of Bishops of Cuba.

It was the first time the head of the Conference of Bishops has met with
the country's leader in five years, when Fidel Castro was still in
charge. Fidel stepped down formally in 2008, turning leadership over to
his brother.

"It was a very positive meeting," said Garcia, who attended the
Wednesday afternoon gathering at the Palace of the Revolution, the seat
of Cuba's government. A photo of a beaming Raul Castro with the two
church leaders was printed on the front page of Thursday's
Communist-party daily Granma, but the caption said little about what was
discussed.

Garcia did not go into specifics about the meeting, but indicated topics
included the government's decision to bar the dissident Ladies in White
from holding weekly marches. The group - comprised of the wives and
mothers of jailed political prisoners - were stopped from protesting for
three straight weekends in April and pro-government counter-protesters
were brought in to shout abuse at them.

The standoff ended after Ortega's mediation, when the government agreed
to allow the quiet protests to resume in return for assurances the women
would not expand their activities.

Garcia said that he thought "that there was good will" on the part of
the government on the issue of dissidents.

The government denies it holds political prisoners, and says dissidents
are paid mercenaries of Washington, which has been at odds with Cuba
since shortly after Fidel Castro overthrew dictator Fulgencia Batista in
1959.

Ortega has waded into politics several times in recent months, telling a
church magazine in April that Cuba was in its worst crisis in years and
that its citizens were clamoring for political and social change sooner
rather than later.

The meeting between Castro and the church leaders comes a month before
Vatican Foreign Minister Dominique Mamberti is scheduled to visit Cuba
for talks on the island's economic challenges and the effects of
emigration and the families torn apart by it.

Mamberti is the first top Vatican official to come since Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state to Pope Benedict XVI, visited Cuba
in February 2008.

Relations between the church and Cuba's government have often been
strained. Tensions eased in the early 1990s when the government removed
references to atheism in the constitution and allowed believers of all
faiths to join the Communist Party. They warmed more when Pope John Paul
II visited Cuba in 1998.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/20/1639365/cuban-president-meets-with-church.html