Word: cuba
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...provide the charitable aid people desperately needed; Cubans were too busy scrounging for necessities to attend religious services. But as they gradually sought spiritual sustenance amid the hardships imposed on them, and as Castro loosened his grip to let religious charities deliver what the government could not, all Cuba's churches grew stronger...
...early days of the revolution. In the book, he astonished Cubans with the extent of his religious knowledge and the flattering comparisons he drew between Christianity and Marxism. "Karl Marx," he said, "would have subscribed to the Sermon on the Mount." Christians, he added, had been excluded from Cuba's government not for ideological reasons but for historical mistakes in supporting the prerevolution status quo. Suddenly the subject of religion was no longer taboo...
...until the conditions were "guaranteed" for it to be a "fruitful meeting." He did, however, modulate the government's relations with the church from confrontation and hostility to the exploration of mutual interest. Neither Fidel nor the Pope suspected then how close to ruin the Soviet edifice was, and Cuba's leader was more concerned with how to manage the influence of liberation theology: while he supported its radical preachings in the rest of Latin America, he saw those same ideas as a threat to his power at home, a church-led attempt to steal the banner of social justice...
...Castro rescinded the ban against Christians' joining the Communist Party, and in 1992 he declared Cuba a secular, not an atheist, state. Sometime around 1995, Castro regained enough equilibrium to reopen serious talks with the Vatican. Some speculate that he was more relaxed, more confident he would not be overthrown. Some say he was convinced that what the Pope had done to galvanize Poland's anticommunist crusade could not be replicated through the weak Cuban church. Some think he realized it was time to embrace the religious hunger in the nation and find ways to dampen discontent...
...dealings with Cuba, the Pope has always insisted on the same huge outdoor Masses, dramatic rallies, religious pilgrimages to national shrines and high state meetings he has turned to such advantage in country after country, right wing or left. There is a remarkable clarity about this Pope: he believes that preaching the Gospel means promoting human rights, that Christ cannot be excluded from man's history anywhere in the world and that there is no future if the dignity of the individual is trampled upon. He remains as determined to rekindle Catholic faith and promote Christian values among the lingering...