25 December 1997
The Washington Post
Caryle Murphy

Holiday Brings Gift of Hope to Cuban Americans

The Christmas of Jose Samosa's childhood always began with an elaborate midnight Mass called the "Mass of the Rooster." This spiritual pageant was followed by a big breakfast and a joyous, day-long celebration that featured music, eating, gift-giving and family reunions.

"It was the most beautiful holiday," said the 60-year-old Francisan priest.

Then came Fidel Castro's 1959 Marxist revolution, which declared Cuba atheist and made religion taboo. The state closed parishes, expelled priests and froze Christians out of jobs. Fearful mothers stopped baptizing their babies. And in 1969, Christmas was declared a regular workday, making Cuba the only country in the Western Hemisphere where Dec. 25 was not an official holiday.

But as Samosa celebrates Christmas Mass today, the pastor of Our Lady Queen of the Americas Church in Northwest Washington is rejoicing in two events that are making this year's holiday season very special for Cuban Americans.

In January, Samosa and some other local residents will travel to Cuba for the first visit of Pope John Paul II to their island homeland. And in a goodwill gesture timed to mark the historic visit, Castro's government has declared Christmas a legal holiday in Cuba for the first time in 28 years.

"Being able to celebrate Christmas in Cuba is a great joy for all Cubans, for us here and for those in Cuba . . . because for us, Christmas is full of religious meaning," said Samosa, who left his native land almost 38 years ago to continue his seminary studies.

Cuba is the only Spanish-speaking country in Latin America that the pope hasn't visited. During his Jan. 21-25 stay, he will tour the island and celebrate several Masses, including one in Havana's Revolution Square. About 30 U.S. Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals are planning to join him, according to a church official. About 20 Washington area residents will be among an estimated 1,500 lay Catholics from across the country also traveling to Cuba for the papal visit, according to Margarita Roque, of the Washington Archdiocese's Hispanic pastoral affairs office.

Like Samosa, Roque believes the pope's visit -- his 81st foreign trip -- is a sign that the dark days for religious freedom in her native land are coming to an end.

"It's a very, very important occasion," said Roque, a District resident who left Cuba when she was 9 years old.

Making Christmas a legal holiday this year "was a wonderful gesture" on Castro's part, she added. "I was very happy for the people because that kind of holiday was part of the Cuban culture. And it was taken away from them. And I have very deeply resented that for all these years."

Orlando A. Lastre, a retired accountant who sings in the Spanish choir at St. Catherine Laboure Catholic Church in Wheaton, said the pope's Cuban trip and the permission to celebrate Christmas are a collective present "that God gave us." He and his wife, Bertha, left Cuba in 1967 but have visited the island regularly in recent years and are packing their bags again to go see the pope.

"Everyone is excited" about the pontiff's arrival, said Bertha Lastre, a counselor at Francis Junior High School in the District. "They expect a lot of things, like more hope. I think the best thing will be a renewal of Christianity in our country, because now the people are going to have direct contact with the pope and are going to see he is a real entity and really represents something."

Jorge Du Breuil, a personnel specialist with Montgomery County public schools, also views the pope's visit as a step toward "complete freedom of religion" in his homeland. The 66-year-old Silver Spring resident was among 140 priests deported from Cuba in 1961.

"That changed my life completely," said Du Breuil, who later obtained a formal release from his priestly vows and married. The communicant at Mother Seton Catholic Church in Germantown has made several trips to Cuba and will be there again to see the pope.

"I really think this is a historical situation," he said. "Things are happening that were unforeseeable years ago, and an opportunity is developing for the Catholic Church to develop a kind of ministry that will help a lot the Cuban people."

Not all Cuban Americans are as enthusiastic about the pope's visit or about plans by U.S. Catholics to visit Cuba. Some fear that the pontiff's trip will give legitimacy to the island's communist leaders and that Castro will use the arrival of Americans for political advantage.

In Miami, criticism by the strong anti-Castro exile community caused the Roman Catholic Archdiocese to cancel plans to take pilgrims to Havana on a cruise ship. Church officials instead suggested that those wanting to see the pope fly to Cuba.

In pre-revolutionary Cuba, about 80 percent of the people were baptized Catholics. But the ruling Cuban Communist Party's strategy, as officially stated in 1975, was "the progressive elimination of religious beliefs through scientific materialistic propaganda."

The first attempt to suppress Christmas came in 1969, when Cuba was in the midst of a major push to harvest a record 10 million tons of sugar. Castro told his people that they had to dedicate every free moment to the harvest and that Christmas would no longer be an official day off.

"In the past, you've actually had a chance of being seen as a troublemaker if you had a Christmas tree in the window," said Shawn T. Malone, associate director of Georgetown University's Caribbean Project. "Celebrating it was evidence of ideological contamination."

Today, the Catholic Church says it has 4.5 million members among Cuba's 11 million people, but only an estimated half-million Catholics practice their faith openly. (Protestants number about 400,000.)

"After almost 40 years of revolution, many [Cubans] are not baptized," said Samosa, who visits Cuba once a year. "And many don't know anything about Jesus Christ or about God."

Still, when the pope visits Cuba, he will find a religious revival underway. Malone and church officials say there is more attendance at religious services and a marked increase in infant baptisms and requests for religious rites at the burial of family members.

"There's been a huge resurgence in both Catholic and Protestant churches," especially among people who are younger than 30, Malone said. "They have grown up under the revolution. . . . They were taught that Marxism represents all they had to know about reality."

But with the fall of communism elsewhere in the world, Malone said, "many have become disillusioned and are looking for something that provides hope and an explanation for their world."

Another reason for the revival may be the Cuban government's attempt to improve relations with the Catholic Church, Malone said. In 1986, it issued visas for several hundred Catholics to attend a national meeting of the church in Cuba. In 1991, the Communist Party changed Cuba's designation from "atheist" to "secular" and removed restrictions against believers becoming members.

In November 1996, the pope and Castro met for the first time at the Vatican.

More recently, the government has permitted open-air Masses and has given resident visas to dozens of priests and nuns. And on Dec. 13, in what Cuban radio said was "a gesture to Christians and the papal visit," the government announced that Christmas, at least this year, will be a legal holiday.

For the Rev. Julio Alvarez, 53, who arrived in the United States as a refugee in 1962 and became a priest in 1975, his trip to Havana next month will be his first since 1987.

This Christmas, said Alvarez, pastor of St. Mark's Catholic Church in Hyattsville, "is a time when, spiritually and emotionally, we will once again be together -- all the Cubans in exile and the Cubans on our island. And as we celebrate Christmas, we realize that we're making history -- not necessarily for us but for . . . generations to come."

At Christmas Mass today, Bertha Lastre intends to remember two men who embodied two of this century's most powerful ideas, and are now in the twilight of their lives.

"I will pray for the health of the pope and the health of Fidel Castro," she said. For when the 77-year-old Catholic pontiff and the 70-year-old communist ruler meet, "I have a feeling I am going to be the witness of something very special for the Cuban people."

Home |  About Us |  Resources |  Press Releases |  Federal Activity & Legislation
State & Local Activity |  NFTC Lawsuit |  Contact Us |  Site Index

.