Word: fidelity
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...imagine Fidel Castro there one day sometime in 1995. He is wrestling with complex, politically dangerous solutions to the crushing failure of his Marxist economy, but at last his nation is beginning to emerge, inch by painful inch, from the darkest years of the "special period," when the world predicted that his country and his government would collapse, just as did that of the Soviet Union. He decides one salve to the trauma is to go ahead with an idea that has intrigued him for some time: a visit by Pope John Paul...
...Pope's goal is nothing less than the global establishment of a completely Christian alternative to the once alluring Marxist philosophies of this age. Yet even after communism imploded in virtually every other corner of the planet, Fidel Castro remains faithful, a true believer in a god that failed. "History will absolve me," he proclaimed at the start of his revolution, and he believes it will absolve him still. John Paul II is equally certain that his religion will one day soon sweep away even this last vestige of godless communism...
...epochal encounter we are to witness this week. Their clash of faiths is mostly symbolic; Pope and President will meet only briefly during John Paul II's emphatically "pastoral" visit to his Cuban flock. The Pope will be center stage, watched by millions on global television, while Fidel will be largely out of sight, watching it all intently from behind the closed door of his Havana office. Who will emerge triumphant...
...FIDEL'S GAME...
...have to wonder how much Fidel Castro admits to himself that much of his dream has turned to ashes. Even this idealist--and he is that--has been forced to stop practicing what he still preaches. He has to be concerned that the political and economic systems he holds dear have exhausted themselves everywhere else. Yet his heart is not in economic reform or in political liberalization, and he has grudgingly done only the minimum required to survive...