The late Cuban leader had a volatile connection with the Catholic church.

Major changes to Cuba's one-party Communist system are predicted.

Castro's brother, Raul, has led Cuba since 2006 when illness forced Fidel to retire.

He has released dozens of political prisoners under deals with the United States and the Roman Catholic Church.

Although Raul Castro has done little more for Catholics, Enrique Pumar, says Fidels's death could encourage the church to take a more proactive role in Cuba.

Pumar is head of the Sociology Department at Catholic University of America and has studied the Catholic Church in Cuba.

This is definitely an opportunity," Pumar said.

"Raúl is going to be more open to the church. But this is going to happen gradually. That's the way change takes place in Cuba."

Another commentator, Ted Henken, who is a Baruch College Latino studies professor and Cuba scholar says church leaders could now "hope to reap further gains in a post-Fidel Cuba.

"The Catholic Church has very wisely — politically, strategically — positioned itself for this day," he said.

Pumar says the church could push for parochial schools to be more accepted in Cuba. At present they are restricted.

The church could also actively participate in brokering discussions between civil society and state leaders, he said.

"A lot of people recognize this is not going to be settled on any battleground," Pumar said. "There has to be some form of conversation and negotiation."

Source

• Reuters
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Slate

When the Brazilian friar Frei Betto met Fidel Castro in 1980 in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, the two had a dense conversation about religious freedom in Cuba that led to a bestselling book that helped pave the way for a church-state rapprochement, and eventually, the visit by Pope John Paul II.

That book laid bare Fidel's complex relationship with the Catholic faith of his childhood in 1940s Cuba, where as a child he was educated by Spanish Jesuit priests at an elite private school in the island's southern city, Santiago.

Betto, a liberationist Dominican sympathetic to the Cuban revolution, told Castro in Managua that his communist state had, in effect, three options. It could be hostile to the Catholic Church — in which case it simply made the case for the U.S. embargo — indifferent to it, or in dialogue with it along with other churches and faiths.

Castro accepted that the third option was the right one, and admitted that he hadn't met a Catholic bishop in 16 years. While the revolutionary government had never broken with the Holy See, it was, in effect, a confessional state — officially atheist.

In the course of the 1980s, Castro moved the revolution slowly towards recognizing the Catholic Church's presence in Cuba, meeting with bishops, and allowing, if not religious freedom, then at least freedom of worship.

When Betto in 1985 published his Fidel y la Religión, it went on to sell 1.3m copies in Cuba alone, and helped create a new conversation about faith on the island.

It revealed that Fidel had been profoundly marked by a deeply Catholic childhood, raised by a fervent mother who prayed daily and lit candles to the saints, as well as by equally devout aunts and uncles. Continue reading

Sources

• Austin Ivereigh in Crux
• Image: ABC News

Pope Francis's condolence message to Raul Castro expressed his "sentiments of grief". He promised to pray for Fidel.

Jesuit-educated, Fidel Castro followed a Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Believing the Church was a state enemy, he declared Cuba an atheist state.

He seized all Cuba's church-run schools, shut down Church publications and expelled numerous priests.

Many were sent to "re-education camps".

He was rumoured to have been excommunicated by Pope John XXIII in 1962.

The reasons for this are supposed to be for affiliating with the Communist Part of Cuba, preaching communism and supporting a communist government.

Pius XII's "Decree against Communism" is said to have provided the basis for the excommunication.

Whether Castro was excommunicated has never been confirmed.

He did, however, meet three Popes.

They were St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

All three helped broker the restoration of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Cuba.

This repaired a breakdown between the countries' relationship that began when the US embargoed exports to Cuba after Castro nationalised American-owned Cuban oil refineries without compensation.

The only goods the US would trade were except for food and medicine.

Pope Francis clinched the reconciliation last year.

Like Castro, Francis often speaks out against unregulated capitalism.

Fidel Castro believed Christianity and revolutionary socialism were compatible beliefs.

"If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I am a Christian," he said in 2006.

Source:

• Reuters
• Herald Malaysia Online
• USA Today
• The Daily Caller
• BBC News
• Wikipedia
• Image: The Telegraph

The Pontiff told the crowd that "service is never ideological".

Speaking in a plaza dominated by a towering portrait of revolutionary Che Guevara, the Pope told the crowd they should "serve people, not ideas".

He added that the faithful "are called by virtue of our Christian vocation to that service which truly serves, and to help one another and not to be tempted by a 'service' which is really 'self-serving'".

Francis added: "There is a way to go about serving which is interested in only helping 'my people', in the name of 'our people'," he said.

"This service always leaves 'your people' outside, and gives rise to a dynamic of exclusion."

His words appear to take aim at President Raul Castro and the communist regime which many Cubans still complain have control over almost every aspect of life.

Anyone who steps out of line or is perceived as being disloyal in Cuba is at risk of losing their benefits.

But even as the Pope spoke, reports emerged that dozens of activists were being arrested.

Hundreds of thousands of people had turned out to watch the Pontiff's service this morning, including the current President Castro and the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Later that day, the Pope met with Fidel Castro and his wife and family.

The Pontiff presented the former president, 89,

The Pontiff presented the former president, 89, with copies of "Laudato Si'" and "Evangelii Gaudium" as well as a book on happiness and the spiritual life by Italian priest Fr Alexandro Pronzato.

Castro, the nation's former dictator, gave Francis a collection of his own conversations about religion with Brazilian cleric Frei Betto.

Vatican spokesman Fr Frederico Lombardi, SJ, said the half hour meeting had been a "very informal conversation".

Sources

• Daily Mail
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Telesurtv

Mr Castro and his brother Fidel suppressed the church in communist Cuba for more than half a century.

President Raul Castro had a private meeting with the Pope in Rome on Monday.

He thanked the Pope for his mediation role in the recent thawing of relations between Cuba and the United States.

Afterwards, Mr Castro revealed that he admires the Pope as a champion of the poor, and that he reads all of his speeches.

He said: "If the Pope continues to talk as he does, sooner or later I will start praying again and return to the Catholic Church - I am not kidding."

"When the Pope goes to Cuba in September, I promise to go to all his Masses, and with satisfaction," he said.

Continue reading

The church will be built in country's second city, Santiago de Cuba.

Catholics in the city have been attending Mass in the street since Hurricane Sandy destroyed their previous ramshackle church.

Part of the new church will be built from the steel beams of the stage on which Pope Benedict XVI said Mass when he visited Havana in 2012.

The project will be funded in part by St Lawrence Parish in Tampa, Florida, most of whose members are Cuban exiles or descendants of exiles.

One final permit is required out of five before construction can begin.

The Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio Garcia Ibanez, told the BBC: "I think it's not only about improving attitudes to the Catholic Church, but to Churches in general.

"I think there's a better understanding of religious affairs, so we hope it won't only be this church that we build. We hope there'll be more."

He also cited growing ties between Cuba and socialist yet devout nations like Venezuela for the improved state outlook towards the Church.

In the early years after Fidel Castro became president, many church properties were confiscated by the Cuban government.

Since then, Catholics and other Christians have developed networks of "house churches" where there are not proper church buildings available.

Believers would baptise their children in secret or attend Mass surreptitiously in distant neighbourhoods

Up to now, the Catholic Church in Cuba was only permitted to renovate existing properties or rebuild where old ones collapsed.

Once officially atheist, Cuba is now a secular state.

Now even Communist Party members now practice their religion openly.

Sixty per cent of Cuba's population is Catholic, but only a fraction practises the faith.

Sources

• The Tablet
• BBC
• Image: Christian Science Monitor

Catholic hawks at the time believed that Pope Paul VI's Ostpolitik, meaning constructive engagement with Marxism, was finally dead and buried.

Today, those folks probably feel trapped in a B-grade slasher film in which the guy with the hockey mask and chainsaw keeps springing back to life. That's because since his election as pope, Benedict XVI has seemed less notable for his anti-communist audacity than his appetite for détente.

Benedict's March 26-28 visit to Cuba, in which he met both the Castro brothers but none of the pro-democracy dissidents, offered the latest case in point.

One sign of the psychological dissonance: American Catholic writer William Doino posted a March 27 essay for First Things under the telling headline, "Has the Church Gone Soft on Communism?" Doino's basic answer was no, insisting that Benedict XVI is not an appeaser, but he also suggested that church officials may require some "fraternal correction" about their soft touch on Cuba.

Others were far less polite.

"I'm exceedingly disappointed," said U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican. (Diaz-Balart comes from a distinguished Cuban family, and his aunt was Fidel Castro's first wife.)

"[Pope Benedict] refused to meet with any members of the opposition," Diaz-Balart told The Huffington Post. "He refused to speak out in any real way against forced abortions. He refused to speak out against the human trafficking that is sponsored by the regime. He refused to condemn the human rights violations in any meaningful way. And it cannot be said that he's not aware of those issues ... He is aware of it because a lot of us have made him aware of it." Continue reading

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Hibernia Times

Ortega made the statements in a rare state TV address, granted to him by Cuban authorities.

"There was great interest in this pilgrimage because the pope is determined to revive the faith in countries that were Christianized before but need a new evangelization, and he saw in this mission a true example of what it is to revive the faith of a people," said Ortega.

"The pope feels that he comes to confirm us in this faith," said Ortega.

The Church in Cuba was more or less shut down following the 1959 revolution led by communist dictator, Fidel Castro.

The state closed schools and harassed priests, and people were prevented from practising their faith.

Relations thawed in the 1990's, particularly after the historic 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II, and intensified in 2010 when the Church brokered a deal with Castro to release political prisoners.

Today Masses and Christmas celebrations are sometimes televised.

As CathNews reported, there are rumours circulating that Castro may be preparing to be readmitted to the Church when Pope Benedict visits later this month. Benedict has said he is keen to visit with Castro.

Sources

• Vatican News
• Washington Post
• Reuters
• Reuters
• CathNews
• Image: USA Today

The chatter in Rome is that Castro is preparing to be readmitted to the Church when Pope Benedict visits Cuba next month.

Speculation went viral as two Italian daily newspapers, La Repubblica and La Stampa reported that the committed revolutionary atheist and ailing octogenarian had 'seen the light'.

Castro's daughter, Alina Fernandez told La Repubblica that lately her father had "come closer to religion and to God."

The reports however have met with skepticism.

"Relations between religion and politics have long been something of an anomaly in Cuba," says Riordan Roett, a Latin America scholar at Johns Hopkins. "But conversion and absolution? That's pretty farfetched."

Nor does Brazil's Frei Betto, a Franciscan friar and close friend of Castro's, pay much heed to the suggestion that the Cuban revolutionary is ready to bow his head. "In my opinion, he's an agnostic," says Betto.

While Castro famously cancelled Christmas as a national holiday in Cuba, a turning point was the papacy of Pope John Paul II with whom, it is reported, Castro "had a fantastic chemistry," and it was during this time that outright repression of religion gave way to a tense, but pragmatic coexistence between clergy and the comandantes.

Earlier in the month, Reuters' reported that Pope Benedict wanted to see Fidel Castro when he visits Cuba in March. At the time the meeting was still pending the health of the communist dictator.

Benedict is still only scheduled to meet the younger Castro, President Raul Castro, 80, who is President of the Council of State and of the Council of Ministers.

Sources

• The Daily Beast
• Reuters
• Image: Randy Thomas

But any sense of exultation by church leaders is tempered by a familiar feeling of persecution. Its role in the prisoner releases has been questioned by critics who accuse the church of accepting the regime's onerous condition that the freed dissidents go into exile. Most did leave for Spain, but Ortega insists it was by choice and not part of any deal.

The church is discovering that being the first — and only — alternative institution to the Cuban revolution is both a blessing and a curse. As President Raúl Castro, who took over for his ailing older brother Fidel in 2008, tries to engineer politically perilous economic reforms in his severely cash-strapped nation, he seems to have decided the church is the only noncommunist entity he can trust to aid those transitions without seriously challenging his rule.

But confrontation is exactly what many Castro critics crave. What good is the church's return to the Cuban center stage, they ask, if it doesn't spark democratic change, as the Polish church did a generation ago in Eastern Europe? The clergymen plead for patience. Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who has aided the Cuban church's revival, says his counterparts there are "opening new space for individual initiative and independent thought," which they believe could help hasten communism's demise when Fidel, 85, and Raúl, 80, die. But Ortega warns against the church "overreaching," and Wenski says that it also wants to promote "a sense of reconciliation" among Cubans.

Full Article: Time Magazine
Image: Cleveland.com