Cuban Leader Embraces World Church

www.phillyburbs.com By ANITA SNOW The Associated Press

Warming up to the Roman Catholic Church while maintaining a distance from local church officials, Fidel Castro exchanged medals with the worldwide leader of an order of nuns that opened a convent here.

During a Saturday night ceremony at the Palace of Revolution where he keeps his offices, Castro bestowed the medal of the Order of Felix Varela, First Grade, to Mother Telka Famiglietti, general abbess of the Order of the Most Holy Savior of St. Brigid. The order was founded by a Swedish mystic who died 700 years ago last year.

Dressed in her dark habit, the abbess then bestowed on Castro one of her religious order's honor, the Ecumenical Cross with the Star of the Commander of St. Brigid.

"This will be a historic day for us," said Castro, who wore a dark suit and tie for the occasion. "This will commit us to being better and to giving ourselves more to those we believe are doing good."

The exchange was unusual amid the chill between Cuba's church and the Communist state with the release of a pastoral letter less than two weeks ago urging the government to ease up on its harsh treatment of citizens.

"The hour has come to pass from being a legalistic state that demands sacrifices and settles accounts to a merciful state willing to offer a compassionate hand before imposing controls and punishing infractions," Cardinal Jaime Ortega - Cuba's top Roman Catholic clergyman - said in that letter.

Ortega and cardinals from the Vatican and Mexico officiated Saturday morning at the Mass to celebrate the newly renovated building that the government donated for the convent.

Ortega read a letter sent by Pope John Paul II to the island faithful, urging them to "keep sailing a steady course."

But he was noticeably absent in the afternoon when Castro made his unprecedented appearance at the two-story convent in Old Havana for the blessing of the building where eight nuns will live. An official reason for Ortega's absence was not given.

Castro's government also has been irritated by a reform effort known as the Varela Project, which is supported by many Catholic laymen on the island even though it is not officially backed by the local church.

Authorities here say they have shelved the request for a voters' initiative on several laws that would guarantee civil rights such as freedom of expression.

The top Varela Project organizer, Oswaldo Paya - an active Catholic who met briefly with Pope John Paul II during a recent trip to Europe to receive the European Union's top human rights prize - downplayed the significance of Saturday's exchange of medals.

"This isn't an opening, it's an event," Paya said.

Castro's government expelled hundreds of priests, mainly from Spain, and shut down more than 150 Catholic schools island wide in the years after his 1959 revolution.

Cuba's church-state relations have improved considerably in recent years. The government declared it was no longer officially atheist in the early 1990s and let religious believers join the Communist Party for the first time.

The highlight of the gradual warming was John Paul's January 1998 visit to the island, along with the declaration of Christmas as an official holiday.

But the church has made no real progress since in efforts to gain greater access to state-run media and to open Catholic schools.

March 9, 2003 1:16 PM