Cuban Exiles Sink Cruise Plan Luxury Ship Won’t Be Carrying Miami Catholics To Papal Visit

The Archdiocese of Miami had its own Titanic-like experience Friday, when a tidal wave of anti-Castro sentiment from the exile community here sank the church’s big plans to sail a luxury ship filled with Catholic pilgrims to Cuba for next month’s visit of Pope John Paul II.

“It is now evident to me that the cruise ship has become a source of serious tension in our community,” Miami Archbishop John C. Favalora said, explaining why he was canceling the trip.

In place of the Norwegian Majesty, chartered at a cost of $800,000, an archdiocese spokeswoman said the church would try to hire a plane to carry to Havana the pilgrims who had signed up for the cruise.

Favalora’s decision came just 24 hours after he met with prominent Latino Catholics - bankers, lawyers and business executives - who expressed concern that Cuban president Fidel Castro would use the visit of an American-based ocean liner to score a symbolic victory in the bitter, 40-year battle between exiles here and the Communist regime.

“The arrival of a luxury liner in Havana would have sent a message of normalcy, when the fact is that there are Cubans dying in the Florida Straits, trying to escape in makeshift rafts,” said Rafael Penalver, a lawyer and one of several Cuban-American leaders who met with Favalora and his three auxiliary bishops. “What we do not want is for Castro to send a false propaganda message to the world.”

Penalver, who is active in both civic and Catholic affairs, said the church’s decision to charter the 1,000-passenger vessel was “insensitive to exiles” and was made with insufficient consultation with Cuban-Americans. “We’re very pleased that the archbishop has listened and taken our concerns into account.”

Because of a 35-year U.S. trade embargo and a prohibition on travel to Cuba, the archdiocese plan to sail directly to Havana had to be approved by the State Department.

In granting approval for the cruise, a State Department spokesman said the “U.S. government views the pope’s visit as a potentially important event in bringing to the Cuban people a message of hope and the need for respect of human rights.”

But church leaders may have misjudged the willingness of exiles - even though most are devout Catholics and admirers of the pope - to accept any act that could be seen as an endorsement of the legitimacy of the Castro government.