Gauging the impact of Pope Emeritus Benedict's visit to Cuba

Posted on Monday, 03.25.13
Papal visit anniversary

Gauging the impact of Pope Emeritus Benedict's visit to Cuba
By MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com

In the year since then-Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba with a message of
"reconciliation," change has come to Cuba but even greater change has
come to the Roman Catholic Church.

Though no one present during the March 26-28, 2012 papal visit would
have imagined it, a new pope has been installed as leader of the world's
1.2 billion Catholics and Benedict has resigned and taken the title of
pope emeritus.

But Benedict, who appeared physically frail as he made the demanding
trip to Mexico and Cuba, perhaps foreshadowed his decision to leave the
papacy in his departing words to Cubans: "Goodbye forever…. May God
bless your future.''

In the intervening year, Cuban leader Raúl Castro has announced he plans
to retire in five years and named an heir apparent, a devastating
hurricane swept Santiago where Benedict celebrated mass, and Cuba has
announced a new policy that will make it easier for Cubans to travel
abroad and for Cubans previously banned to return for visits.

The Cuban Church is preparing a new pastoral program that will set its
course for the next five years. And Good Friday will once again be a
national holiday in Cuba. The government, which was once fiercely
anti-religious, made it a holiday for the first time last year in a nod
to Benedict's visit.

Still, on the anniversary of the visit, which coincides with Holy Week
this year, it may be too soon to gauge the impact of Benedict's mission.

In a recent pastoral letter, the Catholic bishops of Cuba emphasized the
revival of faith and said Benedict's visit "showed us that true faith
does not remove the believer from reality but engages with history and
with the environment to build a more humane, more just and fraternal
society."

Although Benedict wasn't overtly political, he did echo the sentiments
of Pope John Paul II during his 1998 visit to Cuba that the island
should "open itself to the world'' and end its isolation.

In his homily during a mass before hundreds of thousands in Havana's
Revolution Square, Benedict said, "Cuba and the world need change, but
this will occur only if each one is in a position to seek the truth and
chooses the way of love, sowing reconciliation and fraternity.''

Those words still resonate for many of the more than 300 people who
traveled to Cuba with the Archdiocese of Miami for the papal visit.

Andy Gomez, who sits on the Archdiocese of Miami's synod and is a senior
fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies, said since Benedict's visit there does seem to
be more people-to-people contact and more communications between the
Cuban diaspora and those on the island.

"I do so see more willingness on the part of Cuban exiles to build
bridges. The trip helped by bringing back stories that have continued to
shape and change the rhetoric,'' Gomez said.

"One can only hope that his message of reconciliation will sink in
because it is going to be a very difficult process,'' said Carlos
Saladrigas, a South Florida businessman who was one of the pilgrims.
"The timing was opportune because I think we're at a crossroads since
Cuba has begun a process of change. How Cuba does it and how we all help
Cuba is very important.''

Benedict's visit was planned to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the
discovery of a small wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin floating in the
Bay of Nipe. Cubans around the world revere her as Our Lady of Charity
of El Cobre, now Cuba's patron saint.

The Miami pilgrims' visit to her shrine in El Cobre moved Saladrigas'
wife Olga to tears. "I felt like I had two countries and that I belonged
in Cuba. It was very beautiful. I felt so, so close to the Cuban
people,'' she said.

"In Benedict's farewell discourse, he said that Cuba has to become a
home for all Cubans. That said a lot without saying it in a strident
way… This is what will open a future of hope for Cubans,'' said Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski, whose homily at a mass in Havana's Cathedral
urging Cubans to be "protagonists of their own future'' brought people
to their feet in a standing ovation.

Margarita Montemar, a retired Miami Dade College math professor who made
the pilgrimage, thinks back on her trip often. Catholics, she said, will
have to wait with patience for the fruits of the visit. "My prayer and
hope is that the next pope will visit a free Cuba,'' she said as she
leafed through a photo album from the trip. "Pope Benedict's visit was
of a pastor to help people keep the faith and win over lost sheep.''

She said she would visit Cuba again if the circumstances were right. "In
a way, this trip made me more committed to the freedom of Cuba,'' she said.

And before she left the island, Montemar wrote in her journal: "The
pope's visit will mark a before and after in the history of our country.''

Father Luis del Castillo, who works at the Sagrada Familia parish in
Santiago and is a retired Uruguayan bishop, said it's difficult to
measure the impact of Benedict's visit.

"There are many elements that have had a strong influence through the
year. How much has to do with the papal visit and how much to do with
the Jubilee (the full year of celebration commemorating the 400th
anniversary) is very difficult to evaluate,'' said del Castillo.

Among the factors that has had an impact, he said, is Hurricane Sandy,
which walloped Eastern Cuba in October, as well as the ongoing
difficulties of daily life in Cuba.

Thousands of homes in Santiago were destroyed or damaged, five Catholic
churches were leveled and others lost their roofs. But the faithful have
persevered. The parishioners of San Vicente, a wooden church flattened
during the hurricane, held their mass in the open air on Palm Sunday and
other masses were held under makeshift canopies, said del Castillo.

Now with Pope Francis installed, Gomez said he hopes the Vatican will
take a more activist role in Cuba. His wishes: that the pope beef up its
diplomatic representative in Havana when a new papal nuncio is
appointed, acceptance of a letter of resignation that Cardinal Jaime
Ortega submitted when he turned 75 in October 2011, and appointment of a
new cardinal who takes more interest in human rights and freedom of
expression.

During Benedict's visit, he was criticized for not meeting with
dissidents and human right activists and Ortega, the archbishop of
Havana, has drawn criticism from some dissidents who say he is too close
to the Cuban government.

"If the church wants to make an impact in Cuba, it needs a very strong
Vatican representative and a strong cardinal,'' Gomez said.

But Wenski said the legacy of Benedict's visit and his message of
reconciliation, the importance of family and more space for the Cuban
Church is yet to be written.

"He put into motion a lot of things that are still germinating — a lot
of the effects of the visit are yet to be seen,'' the archbishop said.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/25/v-fullstory/3306180/gauging-the-impact-of-pope-emeritus.html