By Father Michael Lapsley on July 20, 2020
Michael Lapsley visiting Cuban 5 hero Gerardo Hernandez in US prison
The Trump Administration is orchestrating an international campaign of hostility against Cuba that includes the claim that there is a lack of religious freedom in Cuba. It has also unilaterally added Cuba to a US government Special Watch List for supposedly having engaged in severe violations of religious freedom. The objective is a crude attempt to isolate Cuba and ultimately to destroy the Cuban revolution.
Through a lack of knowledge many people in the United States and even here in South Africa maybe under the mistaken impression that this is true. Of course, this is another reason for the US’s illegal blockade against Cuba to prevent people from traveling to Cuba and learning the truth first hand.
My own experience and the lived experience of the Cuban people tells a different story. Wherever one travels in Cuba there is evidence of vibrant faith communities living out their faith and expressing their spirituality.
In 1985 I made my first visit to Cuba. At the time I was working for the Lutheran World Federation and I was part of a joint delegation of the Swaziland and Zimbabwe Council of Churches. It was during that first visit that I realized that it is possible to organize society in the interests of a poor majority rather than a rich minority.
Since that first visit, I have visited Cuba quite a number of times.
On several of my visits, I had the opportunity to preach at the Episcopal Cathedral in Havana and some of the clergy have become my lifelong friends. Connected both to the Baptist Union and to centers in the US and across the world, there is a Martin Luther King Memorial Centre in Havana where I have also preached. The Revd Raúl Suárez who led the center for many years was also a member of the Cuban Parliament.
There is also a very active Council of Churches in Havana like the National Council of Churches in the United States and the South African Council of Churches, whom I have met with whenever I go to Havana. When I was there in 2016 many of the church people whom I met told me that relationships between church and state have never ever been as healthy as they are today in Cuba. The Council of Churches and individual Cuban Churches are affiliated to the World Council of Churches.
In Matanzas, an hour and a half out of Havana lies the Evangelical Theological Seminary where I have often visited and included academic staff from outside Cuba. One of their Professors, the Rev. Ophelia Ortega is a former President of the World Council of Churches.
Of course, Roman Catholics have always been the largest Christian Church in Cuba and President Fidel Castro was Jesuit educated.
Because of the negative role of some of the Catholic hierarchy towards the revolution, there was a fraught relationship between Church and State during the first years of the revolution. The Vatican played a constructive role in normalizing that relationship. Who can forget the visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba with a Mass in Revolution Square attended by Fidel with a giant image of the Sacred Heart.
During that visit the Supreme Pontiff unequivocally condemned the US blockade as he called for greater openness by, and to Cuba Or equally the response of a deeply moved President Raul Castro after his first encounter with Pope Francis
In the light of the present spurious allegations by the Trump administration, it is worth recalling that it was the Vatican, behind the scenes, that helped pave the way for the Obama administration’s first steps towards normalizing the relationship between Cuba and the United States
When the 5 Cuban heroes were incarcerated in prisons across the United States for helping prevent terrorism, this grave injustice galvanized the Cuban faith communities to be together in the forefront of demanding their release
The Editorial Caminos, publishing arm of the MLK center became the publisher of the Cuban Edition of my memoir, Redeeming the Past. The funding came from Instituto Cubano del Libro (ICL) – Cuban Book Institute which in turn is funded by the Cuban state.
Like the US and South Africa, Cuba is a secular state, This separation between the religious and the secular does not prevent collaboration and cooperation between Church and State whether with books or in care homes for the elderly run by churches and partially funded by the state.
Between 2018 and 2019, a total of 848,070 Bibles and New Testaments entered the country and were distributed by the Biblical Commission of Cuba.
Ironically it is the Helms-Burton Act of the United States which prevents Bibles coming from the US to Cuba
Back in 1975, at the time the South African army was being defeated in Angola there was a terrible headline in the Sunday Times: “I killed Cubans for Christ.” Imagine the confusion when some of the dead Cubans were found with Bibles in their pockets
Whilst I was in Cuba in 2016, the Cuban government played host to the first-ever meeting between the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and Pope Francis as head of the Catholic Church. Who could have ever thought that communist Cuba would be the site for the first steps of healing a rift dating to the 11th century.
During my visits to Cuba, I also witnessed the joyful celebrations of popular religious practices first brought by Africans of the Yoruba people who came as slaves centuries ago. These practices are now mixed with elements of Catholicism.
Religious Freedom in Cuba today is to be seen throughout the length and breadth of Cuba.
Today these freedoms are guaranteed in 5 different Articles of the Cuban Constitution.
On Good Friday this year, the Way of the Cross lead by Pope Francis was broadcast by Cuban radio as were programs of the Council of Churches which have played since 1992.
In 2019, some 9,741 people visited the country to meet with 72 Cuban religious organizations and fraternal associations. From the United States, despite the limitations that its government imposes on its citizens, 8397 people traveled to Cuba.
In July 2018 the Episcopal Church of Cuba became a constituent diocese of the Episcopal Church of the United States. This is similar to the Anglican church in Southern Africa which extends across a number of Southern African countries
As recently as March of this year The National Council of Churches issued a joint statement with the Cuban Council of Churches deploring the intensification of the blockade in this time of COVID 19.
So to claim that there is a lack of religious freedom in Cuba today is demonstrably hogwash. We should be clear that the motive for spreading these falsehoods is malevolent.
Let all of us who have experienced freedom of religion in Cuba please speak out.
It is important for us to educate ourselves and others with a truthful picture of Cuba
even as Cuba is in the frontline worldwide fighting COVID 19.
Father Michael Lapsley SSM is the Founder of the Institute for Healing of Memories, Former Vice President of the South African Council of Churches, and Chairperson of the Friends of Cuba Society in Cape Town. In the waning days of Apartheid South Africa, he was seriously injured by a letter bomb from security forces including losing both hands and an eye.