In a police state, fearlessness may be the most revolutionary feeling of all. And it is being fueled, in Cuba, by an accelerating religious revival – evidence of a massive loss of faith in government. The trendiest piece of jewelry in Havana these days is a gold cross. Nearly every dance band has a few songs to the orishas, the traditionalAfrican deities of the country’s folk religion, Santeria, a combination of spirit worship and Roman Catholicism. And the Catholic Church has taken the offensive under Cuba’s first cardinal in 30 years. The only nongovernment organization with nationwide reach, the church is straining to address a crisis in nutrition and health care – in effect putting it into competition with a government that tells Cubans they’re turning the corner. ““Every day is worse for our people,’’ said Msgr. Angel Perez Varela at Havana’s Church of Regla, as Sunday-school children devoured a free breakfast of chocolate milk and buttered bread.
Castro may even be losing his magic in the country’s Santeria community. Critics say that he quietly encouraged African-based spiritualism because it has no institutions to challenge the state. But some of the country’s babalawos – Santeria priests – have turned downbeat; in the annual New Year’s prediction, one group warned of a high risk of deaths among ““political, professional and intellectual personalities.’’ Government cash shortages may be part of the problem. One babalawo tells how provincial officials last year pleaded poverty in refusing to donate a calf for use in a sacrifice to the sea god Orisa Olokun. ““They said, “You know we hardly have meat to feed the population – what will they say on Radio Marti?’ ’’ the babalawo recalled. ““And look what happened – two huge floods.''
The Catholic challenge is more direct. In 1993, the bishops issued their sharpest criticism of Castro since the revolution, calling for an end to ““the exclusionary and omnipresent character of the official ideology.’’ They also have an economic lever. The U.S. economic embargo of Cuba specifically exempts relief shipments to Cuban ““nongovernmental organizations’’ – in effect, the church. In the last two years alone, the U.S. State Department says, it has approved some $70 million in humanitarian donations, mainly to Catholic charities. Castro is in no position to turn down the aid. The policy is designed to present him with a quandary. The more Castro permits churches to usurp the state’s role, the less relevant his government will seem, the reasoning goes. But in Cuba, church and government officials say they are cooperating effectively in a humanitarian effort to blunt the effects of the end of Soviet support and of U.S. sanctions.
Castro has been at pains to stay on the right side of the religious revival, even if it meant an about-face. He tacked decisively in 1990, when he admitted on national television that ““believers’’ had been treated unjustly. In 1991, the Communist Party opened its ranks to them, and security agents disappeared from churches. Catholics like Francisco Jezus, 26, began returning in droves; outside Havana’s Cathedral during Ash Wednesday services last week, he showed how he has pasted a color photo of the cardinal onto his government ID.
The government still limits the number of priests, nuns and Bibles allowed into Cuba. Some party members – and Protestant leaders – still bristle at the memory of Catholicism’s prerevolutionary role, when it clearly stood with the political establishment. ““We think they are traitors to our people, annexationists,’’ said Homero Saker, a Foreign Ministry official. Caridad Diego, head of the party’s religious-affairs office, says the church once was ““counter-revolutionary,’’ but that today the government wants ““a greater appreciation of the various churches’ work.’’ She shrugs off the religious revival with an old saying: ““When the earth moves under the people’s feet, they naturally look up to the sky.''
Can a single-party communist state survive in a country that increasingly looks to God for guidance? ““No comment,’’ says the communications director for the Archdiocese of Havana. ““As long as faith doesn’t enter into political practice, there is no problem,’’ says Diego. But others, waiting outside the pressure cooker that Cuba has become, aren’t so circumspect. ““The church in Cuba is reality,’’ says Heriberto Lopez Alberola, a Miami attorney who is organizing a Catholic charity for Cuba. ““In these times of transition it is going to play a pivotal role in convening conflicting parties.’’ The stronger religion grows, the harder it may be for Castro to keep his monopoly on power.
