Mass Anticipating Pope’s Visit Gets State’s Ok Church-Government Friction Clear In Cuba

The archbishop of Havana celebrated an open-air Mass here Saturday to prepare for the upcoming visit of Pope John Paul II, a week after officials blocked a similar Mass.

About 700 people cheered an icon of Cuba’s patron saint, the Virgin of Charity, and took communion from Cardinal Jaime Ortega in the tree-shaded town square of Santiago de las Vegas, on the southern edge of the Cuban capital.

Shouts of “Viva John Paul II! … Viva Cuba!” rose from the congregation as a stream of bicyclists rode by on the muddy, rutted street bordering the park.

A similar service planned in another neighborhood on Oct. 12 was forced indoors, evidence of lingering tensions between the Roman Catholic Church and the communist state.

Caridad Diego, chief of the party’s Office for the Attention of Religious Affairs, said communist officials reserve the right to limit outdoor worship services or processions if they believe there could be “political manipulation” of the observances by participants.

Besides the friction over holding outdoor Masses, another irritant in church-state relations here is a recent government decree sharply limiting wholesale purchases by the island’s Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

The measure increases the cost of the churches’ humanitarian efforts by forcing them to buy most items retail with dollars, according to the decree, a copy of which was seen by The Associated Press.

Many of the items barred from wholesale purchase are electrical goods. Officials in May told the Mexican magazine Proceso the limit was imposed partly to conserve electricity.

But Proceso also reported that the Communist Party was upset by reports that some churches were buying wholesale goods at what the government considers subsidized prices, including alcoholic beverages, and reselling them at a profit or using them as gifts to attract new members.

On Saturday, however, few of the tensions between the government and the church were evident. Other than a brief power failure, Saturday’s Mass went smoothly.