CUBA: Castro v. the Church

Fidel Castro last week lashed out at the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba as “scribes and Pharisees,” “peons of the American embassy” and “Franco Fascists.” Castro’s rage was aroused by a pastoral letter* condemning “the growing advance of Communism in our country.” He shouted that whoever “condemns the revolution betrays Christ” and is “capable of crucifying Christ again.”

The Catholic Church in Cuba has only 720 priests, one for each 8,000 Catholics, compared with the U.S. ratio of one for every 760 Catholics. Moreover, Cuba’s lower classes consider the church somewhat foreign; 400 of the priests are Spanish-born (most of them anti-Franco, despite Castro’s accusation), and another 100 are foreigners from other countries. Although nearly 85% of Cuba’s 6,700,000 population is nominally Catholic, regular church attendance is confined mostly to women and children. Castro himself went to Jesuit-run schools for eleven years and wore a religious medal as a guerrilla in the hills. But he is divorced (though not remarried) and does not go to church. His ten-year-old son, under his mother’s influence, has become a Methodist.

Yet even Maximum Leader Castro cannot afford to ignore the church. In the past five years, it has been a rallying point for enemies of dictators who fell in Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia. Last week, after pro-Communist gangs attacked crowds leaving Havana Cathedral, Archbishop Diaz threatened that the Cuban Catholic Church might declare itself officially “in silence”—as it is behind the Iron Curtain. As the Castro-Catholic battle got hotter, church attendance showed a sharp and significant upturn.

*Signed by Manuel Cardinal Arteaga, 80, Archbishop of Havana and Primate of Cuba; Santiago Archbishop Enrique Perez Serantes, who saved Castro’s life in 1953 when he was fleeing the wrath of Dictator Fulgencio Batista after an abortive uprising; the Vatican-appointed Apostolic Administrator, Evelio Diaz; and six other bishops.