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Episcopal Church in Cuba 'Looking Toward the Future'

Episcopal News Service. February 2, 1993 [93025]

Chris Herlinger, A journalist completing a master of arts degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Cuba may be facing an uncertain political future, but the Episcopal Church in Cuba is experiencing something of a revival, according to that nation's Episcopal bishop.

The Right Rev. Emilio Hernandez said in an interview last month that the Cuban government's increasingly open attitude toward religion is one reason Episcopalians are returning to the church in greater numbers.

"All churches in Cuba are having a revival," Hernandez told a group of visiting students from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In the Episcopal Church, there are increasing numbers of confirmations and baptisms. Particularly common now are baptisms of young adults and young people who were not baptized in the 1960s and 1970s. Church leaders reported that although there was no repression per se in those years, there was social pressure against attending church. For example, someone openly faithful would have a hard time getting a promotion at work.

Numbers are up

Hernandez and the Rev. Miguel Tamayo, a priest at Havana's Cathedral Episcopal de la Santisma Trinidad, said that while the number of members at the cathedral has remained steady for 10 years -- about 300 -- the number of those receiving Holy Communion at least three times a year has doubled recently.

Five years ago, the number of Episcopal communicants at the cathedral was about 90; now it's about 180. In the entire nation, there were some 10,000 communicants in 1959, the year Fidel Castro took power. That number dropped to less than 2,000 shortly afterwards, when nearly 75 percent of the island's Episcopalians moved to the United States. Now there are about 3,000 Cuban Episcopal communicants nationwide, and the numbers are increasing.

Hernandez and Tamayo said that while relations between the Cuban churches and the Cuban government were icy for many years, a thaw began 10 years ago, based on the growth of liberation theology in Latin America. Fidel Castro himself, interviewed for the 1985 book Fidel and Religion, spoke freely of his religious background and "in effect gave permission" for Cubans to return to church, Tamayo said.

Now, when people return to the church after a long absence, no questions are asked. "We don't ask people why they haven't been to church in 30 years," Hernandez said. "We're looking toward the future."

"It's like the story of the Prodigal Son," Tamayo said. "It's a feast."

Continued uncertainty

Hernandez and Tamayo said that the role of the church now is to give Cubans hope during a tense time -- the downfall of the Soviet Union, once Cuba's principal benefactor, and a continued U.S. economic blockade have caused grave economic hardships for Cuba. And there is continued uncertainty about the future of Castro's government, the only avowed Marxist state in Latin America.

Hernandez and Tamayo said that change in Cuba will depend both on the Cuban and U.S. governments. For its part, the Cuban government has to recognize that Cubans want both peaceful reform and an economy that produces more. In agriculture, for example, "the collective way of growing isn't producing. There aren't enough incentives," Tamayo said.

However, the United States government has to see that its blockade is harming the Cuban people, and that it stems from the "pride" of national arrogance, Tamayo insisted.

Hernandez, who opposed the dictatorship of President Fulgencio Batista prior to 1959 and served a 10-year jail sentence from 1962 to 1972 for opposing Castro, said that the United States would be learning the wrong lesson of history if it thinks needed internal change within Cuba can be imposed from outside.

The bishop insisted that his ministry was never allied with any particular political groups over the years -- he has opposed oppression wherever he saw it. "I'm not a Communist. I'm not a Socialist," he said, "I don't like repression. I like freedom."

"We will do everything to change the many things that are not right," Hernandez added. "But we're not going to change our fate due to North American politics, or because of their interests."