The Pope in Cuba  by P.F. Bentley

Worshippers at St. Bosco's Church in Havana, the Sunday before the Pope's arrival. As part of the baptism rites, candles are lit in homage to Jesus.   Video to accompany this photo.

 The Catholic church has a lot of ground to recover. “The thing is, in the past, there was pressure not to go to church,” explains Armando Garcia, 58, from Cienfuegos, who packed up five other family members Thursday to attend mass. He was holding the Pope on a stick banners his church had handed out and members of his family were wearing visors sponsored by Catholic Relief Services. A practicing Catholic since birth, he spoke pretty openly about repression of the church when he was younger. He was modestly optimistic about what could change: “It’s a blessing, a lift to our spirit. Will things change? At least the spiritual part.” But he also whispered about traitors in their midst. “We know that there are traitors even here. But I’m not afraid. There are a ways members of the party, but the Pope will  touch their hearts too,” Garcia said.
        Others were less willing to discuss repression and especially how Fidel, who until only a few years ago had declared Cuba atheist, had come around to inviting the anti-communist Pope to Cuba. Ricardo Perez, 30, from Sancti Spiritu and a member of a church youth group twisted his face and glanced at his friends when asked to discuss Fidel and the church. He grabbed my notebook and wrote: “I can’t talk.” His friends glanced around saying, “Be careful Ricardo.” Then he wrote one last sentence: “Not communist.”
        Jose Alberto Vazquez, 33, had shown up because his employer, the public health ministry where he’s a medical technician, had asked them to. But Jose, a militant and not a Catholic, didn’t see religion as compatible with his faith in the state: “Fidel is not religious, he’s a revolutionary.”  The good he saw in the Pope’s visit, he explained, was that the Pope and Fidel had “similar ideas” about “poverty and hunger.”
        Most people were happy to give their names. “I’m not doing any harm,” declared Eugenia Gonzalez, 63, who had come from Yaguaramas, a few towns over from Santa Clara and gone knocking on neighborhood doors to invited people to the mass. She explains the churches history with Fidel this way: “There was confusion. I wouldn't want to comment on the past.”  Her hope to come out of the visit was that, “there be a little bit more peace.”

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