The Cuban Church's role in national life after President Fidel Castro relinquished power is not to be political but to accompany the people wherever the future leads, said two Cuban Catholic leaders.

“I don't think the people see the Church as a political player. Nor has the Church presented itself as a political player,” said Orlando Marquez Hidalgo, spokesman for the Cuban bishops' conference.

Fr Rene Ruiz Reyes, Havana archdiocesan delegate to the bishops' National Commission for Priests, said that “the mission of the Church is to accompany the people along the road” at a time when no one in the Caribbean island country can predict the future.

Both Cubans were interviewed by Catholic News Service Sept 29 while in Washington to meet with officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They were part of an 18-member delegation of Cuban priests and laypeople who initially arrived in the U.S. to attend a Sept 18-21 gathering in Miami with Cuban Catholics living in the US.

Marquez said that the role of the Church now is to offer a helping hand to Cubans and “it would be an error to see the Church as having a political role.”

Fr Ruiz said that Cubans were shocked all of a sudden to learn that Castro was sick and in the hospital after having ruled the country uninterruptedly for 47 years.

Nobody knows what will happen, said the priest. People are waiting to see if Castro will make an appearance in December because that is when he said he will publicly celebrate his 80th birthday, which took place Aug 13.

At the end of July Castro was operated on for internal bleeding and ceded power to his brother, Raul Castro, while he recuperated. But by the beginning of October no date had been set for Castro's return to power, sparking speculation as to whether his health would permit him to resume running the country.

“Time will tell if his brother (Raul) takes over,” said Fr Ruiz.
No matter what happens the Church will be ready to help the people spiritually and “enlighten them through the Church's social teaching,” he said.

Regarding the Miami gathering, Fr Ruiz said that the informal yearly meetings between Catholics from Cuba and Cubans living in the United States began in 1997 as a way of fostering mutual understanding. The first meetings were only for priests but since 1999 they have included laypeople, he said.

The meetings also have been an effort to help Cubans in the US -- who have complained that the Cuban Church was not critical enough of the Castro regime -- to understand the complex Church-state problems in Cuba.
How to deal with the Castro regime has often been a divisive issue between Catholics in Cuba and in the US.

At the Sept 21 closing Mass Miami Archbishop John C Favalora referred to the divisions. “In the Eucharist there is no us and them, no Church in Cuba and Church in the diaspora,” he said. “Any good discussion must begin with mutual respect and acceptance of each other as equals,” he said.

“No single one of you has all the answers, no single one of you has the best way to deal with the challenges that confront the mission and reality of the Church in Cuba today,” the archbishop said.

In Cuba, the most detailed public statement by a Church official since Castro's illness was in a Sept 8 homily by Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino. He said the Church prays for domestic peace following the “new political situation” caused by Castro's ceding of power.

The cardinal added that the Church opposed foreign interference in Cuban affairs and that Catholics would continue praying for people in Castro's jails.

The Sept 8 Mass commemorated the 90th anniversary of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre as Cuba's patroness.

(CNS)