A senior Vatican official will be visiting Cuba this week, perhaps setting the stage for a later visit by Pope Benedict XVI.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is traveling to Cuba this week, to introduce the new Compendium of Catholic social teaching.
Cardinal Renato Martino hopes to speak with Fidel Castro during his visit to Havana, although government officials have not yet responded to a request for a meeting. He will also travel to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico before returning to Rome.
The Italian prelate, who will be in Havana from February 15 to 18, to present the new volume that encapsulates the social teachings of the Church. Cardinal Martino has already introduced the book, published in October 2004, on trips to Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Tanzania, Germany, Angola and Thailand.
Not known is whether there will be discussions of a papal visit. An Italian cardinal who met with Castro in December said the dictator offered an informal invitation, and that he called the Cuban church "the social institution closest to the people."
I confess to mixed feelings about a possible visit by Pope Benedict.
A papal visit, like John Paul II's seven years ago, would give the Cuban people a chance to exercise their faith in public and contrary to the state's official atheism. It might also give the people hope that one day they will be free.
But it is dangerously naive to believe that a papal visit alone would change the nature or the practices of the regime. As the CWS story notes:
Castro granted some concessions to the Church, including the release of some prisoners of conscience, in January 1998, when Pope John Paul II made his historic visit to the island nation. But in September 2003 the Cuban Catholic bishops charged in a public statement that the regime was moving back from its commitments to expand religious freedom.
The Vatican should demand stronger assurances and actions — such as the release of all political prisoners — before the pope agrees to a visit. Considering the spiritual purposes of a papal visit, the pope is unlikely to set such a pre-condition. His position as shepherd of the Catholic flock requires he go everywhere the church is in need.
But it does not require he go silently or with his eyes closed.
I have some misgivings, but I do believe the pope should accept Castro's invitation.
Papal visits helped bring down communism in Poland, serving as outlets for Polish opposition to the regime and unifying the population in common cause under a common leader.
Cuba is different, as evidenced by the lack of a similar result so far on the island. The faith of the Cuban people, as Robert noted recently at Babalu, is not as strong.
I am skeptical, but I have enough faith to believe a visit to Cuba by Pope Benedict might help change that.
Alfredo at El Cafe Cubano has contact information for the pope and other senior Vatican officials.
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