Panelists discuss church's contribution to improvements in Cuba

Panelists discuss church's contribution to improvements in Cuba
By Patricia Zapor
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Through a series of efforts -- including the
publication of two magazines, the creation of education and social
service programs, and negotiations to release some prisoners -- the
Catholic Church in Cuba has been instrumental in moving the country in
new directions, said a panel of speakers July 29.

In a forum hosted by the Brookings Institution, Orlando Marquez Hidalgo
explained that the magazine, Palabra Nueva, of which he is editor and
director, and its sister publication, the online magazine Espacio
Laical, are the only forms of news media regularly available to their
publisher, the Archdiocese of Havana.

As such, they regularly write about a wide spectrum of topics, from
religion to the economy, sports, everyday life and politics, he said.

Another panelist observed that one of the most important accomplishments
of the Cuban bishops has been to promote and validate Father Felix
Varela, a candidate for sainthood, as an "eternal symbol of the nation."

While such publications as Marquez's might seem unremarkable in the
United States, a third panelist observed, they serve a valuable purpose
in Cuba, where their existence is among "the clearest signs of renewal"
in the communist country.

Marquez also commented favorably on recent reforms by the Cuban
government, such as those allowing private businesses, and permitting
people to buy and sell their homes and cars and to own cell phones. And
the climate in which the church has begun teaching people how to manage
private enterprises, as well as offer instruction in religion, is
beginning to have a positive effect on Cubans' views of their country,
he said.

"I hear young people say they are now considering staying in their
country," he said. "They think they have new opportunities to create
something."

Tom Quigley, former foreign policy adviser on Latin America and the
Caribbean to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, explained that
soon after Fidel Castro's revolutionaries took power in 1959, religious
schools were closed and church property was taken over by the state.
Many priests and nuns were expelled and many others left on their own,
he said, while those involved in the church -- any church -- were
subjected to discrimination at best and sometimes harassment and detention.

For decades, the church and the regimes of former President Fidel Castro
and his brother, Raul, the current president, had no official contacts,
except through the religious affairs bureau, the government agency which
must approve even mundane acts such as a church's purchase of a photocopier.

But beginning with Blessed Pope John Paul II's visit to the nation in
1998, inroads were created for loosening some restrictions on how the
church functions. For example, John Paul laid the cornerstone for the
first new construction for the church in nearly 40 years: a new San
Carlos and San Ambrosio seminary, which opened in 2010.

Quigley said the transition from Fidel Castro's rule to his brother's
was one factor in more dramatic changes for the church. "It has been
Raul who has helped to bring the Catholic Church at least partway in
from the cold," he said.

The church negotiated the release of more than 50 political prisoners
two years ago, has opened a new cultural center in Old Havana that
includes the country's first school for obtaining a master's in business
administration and has begun offering social services to meet the needs
of the country's poor, elderly and disabled people.

Quigley observed that criticism of Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino of
Havana and Archbishop Dionisio Garcia Ibanez of Santiago de Cuba,
president of the Cuban bishops' conference, for having any kind of
relationship with the Castro government is unwarranted and unfair.

For example, he said, U.S. news media including The Washington Post and
Radio Marti, which is a Cuban government agency, have attacked Cardinal
Ortega for pursuing a relationship with the Castro government.

Quigley said U.S.-based activists who oppose the Castro regime have
drummed up critiques of the cardinal for such things as the fact that
Pope Benedict XVI did not meet with the activists known as the Damas en
Blanca, or Ladies in White, when he visited Cuba in the spring of 2012,
crying "crocodile tears for the Damas."

The women "had no more right or reason to demand a meeting" than did any
other activists with whom the pope also did not meet, Quigley said.
Besides, "they could have told him nothing that he was not already aware
of."

A third panelist, Eusebio Mujal-Leon, a professor of government and
director of the Cuba XXI Project at Georgetown University, said
allegiance to the Castros, particularly Fidel, became a sort of national
religion in Cuba, with nationalism replacing other things to which
people were devoted, including religion.

Mujal-Leon said Raul Castro understood he could not govern the country
in the same way his brother had. And Cardinal Ortega "had the sense to
see there were greater negotiating opportunities under Raul," because
the president actually needs the church in this time of transition.
Castro said in February that he would step down in 2018.

Mujal-Leon said the promotion of the sainthood cause of Father Varela,
who was named as venerable in 2012, in some ways puts the 19th century
promoter of Cuban independence on an equal footing in the hearts of Cubans.

Source: "CNS STORY: Panelists discuss church's contribution to
improvements in Cuba" -
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