Pope Francis Careful in Navigating Cuban Politics

Pope Francis Careful in Navigating Cuban Politics
By JIM YARDLEY and AZAM AHMEDSEPT. 20, 2015

HAVANA — Revolution Square is the political stage of revolutionary Cuba.
Fidel Castro held huge rallies here to castigate the imperialists up
north. Looming over the square are immense portraits of the
revolutionaries Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos.

Into this charged atmosphere on Sunday came Pope Francis, celebrating an
outdoor Mass attended by President Raúl Castro, the leadership of his
Communist government and tens of thousands of Cubans. For those hoping
Francis would speak about political freedom during his visit here, the
moment seemed ripe.

And Francis did speak about politics. Colombian politics. He encouraged
that country's peace talks.

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As for Cuban politics, Francis has so far spoken in what might be called
pope code. At the plaza and other events on Sunday, as he did at the
airport welcoming ceremony the day before, Francis refrained from any
direct criticisms of the Cuban government but made the sort of oblique
asides that could be interpreted as disapproval — or explained away as
anything but.

"Service is never ideological," Francis said at the plaza soaked in
ideology, after summoning Cubans to embrace the Christian ideal of
service, "for we do not serve ideas. We serve people."

In visiting Cuba, Francis is following his predecessors — both Pope John
Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI offered Mass in Revolution Square — and
charting a new path. As the first Latin American pope, Francis is
enormously influential in his native region, which has raised
expectations and pressures that he will wade into regional politics. His
role in brokering the diplomatic breakthrough between Cuba and the
United States has only raised his credibility.


Yet he is careful to avoid seeming too political and is being especially
careful in navigating the politics of Cuba. This cautiousness has
frustrated some Cuban dissidents who want a public meeting with the
pope. On Sunday, the police stopped three men trying to distribute
leaflets near Revolution Square.

"I wouldn't say we are disappointed — it simply doesn't appear to us to
be right or just that the pope doesn't have a little time to meet with
those Cubans who are defending human rights," said José Daniel Ferrer,
the head of the nation's largest dissident organization, the Patriotic
Union of Cuba.

Mr. Daniel said that more than 60 people had been arrested before and
during the pope's visit, including three prominent female activists who
were in contact with the pope's delegation. But he noted that the
detentions had been conducted carefully, a sign of the changing times.

Francis has dipped into some issues in Latin America, and avoided
getting directly involved in others. During his visit to South America
in July, Francis endorsed dialogue between Bolivia and Chile over
landlocked Bolivia's demands for an access route to the sea. He gave
prominence on Sunday to the Colombia peace talks — though the Vatican
has rejected calls to directly intervene in the negotiations between the
government and the FARC rebel group. Francis has also resisted requests
that he support Argentina's claims on the Falkland Islands.

"There has never been such resonance for the papacy in Latin America,"
said Gianni La Bella, an expert in Rome on Latin American Catholicism.
"You could almost say that Francis is considered as an alternate United
Nations in the region."

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For many Cubans, those living on the island as well as the diaspora, the
role of the pope is more than merely spiritual. As an Argentine, Francis
lived through a dictatorship and the political turmoil that ensued,
giving him more than just a linguistic and historical affinity for the
people of Cuba, said Hugo Cancio, a Cuban-American businessman.

"He is one of us, in many ways," Mr. Cancio said. "He understands the
desires of Cubans."

He added: "His message cannot be spiritual alone — there has to be some
political component. But he is doing it in a soft and careful way."

The welcoming ceremony on Saturday offered a small example of this
balancing act. First, Francis thanked President Castro and conveyed his
respects to Fidel Castro. Then, in a nod to dissidents and the diaspora,
he added that he "would like my greeting to embrace especially all those
who, for various reasons, I will not be able to meet, and to Cubans
throughout the world."

After the Mass on Sunday, Francis met for more than a half-hour with
Fidel Castro and members of his family for what the Vatican spokesman
described as an informal and familial chat. The two men exchanged books,
as Francis recalled that the former Cuban leader had asked for reading
materials during Pope Benedict's visit in 2012.

Francis also had a private meeting with President Castro at the Palace
of Revolution, though neither man made any public remarks.

Once heavily Catholic, Cuba has long mattered to the Vatican, just as
Cuba has long influenced South America. During the 1970s, Fidel Castro
and other Cuban revolutionaries helped inspire and train the guerrilla
movements in Argentina and elsewhere across the continent. More
recently, populist leftist leaders in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia
have embraced Cuba and the Castro political legacy.

Mr. La Bella, the analyst, said that Francis did not endorse the
politics of those leftist leaders but that he recognized they have
tapped into a sentiment shared by many people across Latin America.

"Francis wants to connect with that hope for change that these movements
express," Mr. La Bella said. "For Francis, Cuba is a strategic front
line for the new relationship with South American countries."

In his speeches, Francis has at times sought to help steer Cuba in a new
direction at a moment when many analysts expect the thaw with the United
States to accelerate political and economic change on the island.

Since arriving in Cuba, he has emphasized the importance of service to
others, holding out Christianity as something greater than ideology. At
his last appearance on Sunday, he went off script, challenging the Cuban
youth in attendance to dream boldly and chastising nations that rob
their young of opportunities to work. A day earlier, he also sought to
link Cuba's independence with its legacy of Catholicism.

"He's trying to link nationality with faith," said Austen Ivereigh,
author of "The Great Reformer," a biography of Francis.

Whether Francis' approach to Cuba can further revive the Cuban church
remains unclear. Many people in the crowd for the outdoor Mass
recognized that the pope's mission went beyond preaching Catholicism to
the masses, perhaps none more than the secular Cubans in attendance.

Ramon Trullo, 69, said he had come to see the Mass because the pope was
someone he considered "a personality on the world stage."

"His ideas are religious ones, but they are also ones that anyone in the
world can identify with," Mr. Trullo said. "Why shouldn't we accept his
words of justice and equality?"

Source: Pope Francis Careful in Navigating Cuban Politics - The New York
Times -
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/americas/pope-francis-cuba.html