Word: cuban
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...church asked for more "space" in Cuban society, the chance to play a larger role within the traditional Catholic concerns of education, charity, public worship. The dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall crushed all that, eliminating any interest Castro had in rapprochement with the church. He needed every ounce of his strength and ingenuity to protect the revolution. The Catholic Church lost much in that period too. The young fled the island in record numbers, seeking salvation in the American Dream. Priests had no resources to provide the charitable aid people desperately needed; Cubans were too busy scrounging for necessities...
...Castro met some liberation-theology priests in Nicaragua and, says Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, "decided that social justice, greater equality and caring for the poor were not very different goals from those of the Cuban revolution." So he invited the Pontiff to stop by during a Mexican tour that year, but the "technical layover" Castro offered held no appeal to John Paul...
...more concerned with how to manage the influence of liberation theology: while he supported its radical preachings in the rest of Latin America, he saw those same ideas as a threat to his power at home, a church-led attempt to steal the banner of social justice away. Cuban Catholic leaders, representatives of a church that had catered mainly to the upper classes, not the masses, never embraced those doctrines. Cuba had already had a revolution, they said. What it needed now was reconciliation...
...Castro regained enough equilibrium to reopen serious talks with the Vatican. Some speculate that he was more relaxed, more confident he would not be overthrown. Some say he was convinced that what the Pope had done to galvanize Poland's anticommunist crusade could not be replicated through the weak Cuban church. Some think he realized it was time to embrace the religious hunger in the nation and find ways to dampen discontent. But he was probably driven as much by practical concerns as Cuba begged for European investment to sustain its hard climb out of economic catastrophe. The more Castro...
...minutes with Castro at the Vatican late in 1996, the Pope did not wag his finger or lecture the revolutionary Comandante. Instead, he listened. He let the eternally voluble Fidel talk. He treated him with the respect Castro craves. And he disarmed Fidel. Not only did the Cuban leader at long last issue the invitation for a pastoral trip, but also he gushed afterward about "the strong emotional impact" of their meeting, calling it a "miracle." He sang praises to the Pope's "greatness" and his "brilliant intellect...