http://www.granma.cu/ingles/news-i/22mar-13juan-pablo.html
Havana. March 22, 2012
POPE JOHN PAUL II’S VISIT TO CUBA
A lesson to the world
Dalia González del Gado
AS the Popemobile moved along Havana’s wide avenues lined with enthusiastic
people, chants of "You can feel it, you can feel it, the Pope is here with us,"
and "Juan Pablo, friend, Cuba is with you," could be heard.
Current Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, affirmed in
his book Un cuore grande, Omaggio a Giovanni Paolo II that the Pope confided in
him that possibly no head of state had so profoundly prepared for the visit of
a Pontiff.
>From January 21 through 25, 1998, Cuba gave the world a lesson, one of many.
>One did not have to be religious to feel the intensity of the encounter
>between the Cuban people and the Supreme Pontiff.
Cuba’s enemies wanted to celebrate. But the idea of an alleged Apocalypse
presented by the foreign media ceded to the image of a people who listened with
affection and respect to his message. Those five days did not change the
history of Cuba, they enriched it.
Cardinal Roger Eychegaray, then president of the Justice and Peace Pontifical
Commission, stated in an interview with Granma, "Rarely has a Papal visit
aroused such universal interest and infused in his diverse interlocutors a
responsibility so great that it commits all of one and everyone."
Pope John Paul II defined a central theme in each one of the four masses he
gave. In Santa Clara he dedicated his sermon to the family; in Camagüey to
youth, and in Santiago de Cuba to the homeland.
In the José Martí Plaza de la Revolución he devoted his reflections to the role
of laypersons in the Church.
REENCOUNTER WITH FIDEL
They already knew each other. They had met in the Vatican on November 19, 1996.
Thousands of journalists, camera crews, reporters for various foreign
television and press networks, transmitted images of a Pope and a Communist
leader which swept aside ill-intentioned commentaries and their alleged
differences with the second shaking of hands.
Believers and non-believers showed hospitality and respect toward the
Holy Father during his visit to Cuba.
Fidel Castro received the Pope and bade him farewell at José Martí
International Airport, and met with him privately in the Palace of the
Revolution. He also accompanied John Paul II in the encounter with cultural
figures and during the mass in Plaza de la Revolución.
"Fidel was the President who gave the best attention to Pope John Paul II,"
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, current Vatican Secretary of State, affirmed years
later in his book Un cuore grande, Omaggio a Giovanni Paolo II. "Fidel showed
affection for the Pope, who was already ill, and John Paul II confided to me
that possibly no head of state had so profoundly prepared for the visit of a
Pontiff (...). Fidel had read the encyclicals and principal speeches of John
Paul II and even some of his poems."
A LESSON TO THE WORLD
The Supreme Pontiff’s visit to Cuba took place in the upheavals of the 1990s.
The disappearance of socialism in Eastern Europe and the USSR had unleashed
great euphoria within the U.S. government and among counterrevolutionary groups
in Miami. It was predicted that the Cuban Revolution would collapse in a matter
of days or weeks. Cuban exiles began to make political moves to organize a new
government.
They themselves described John Paul II as a kind of exterminating angel of
socialism, as a man whose visit would be prejudicial to the national social
project.
The people greet His Holiness John
Paul II in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución.
(Photo: Ahmed Velásquez)
With his usual clarity of vision, Fidel had observed that. "I see so many
illusions being created in desperation, that the Pope’s visit will be somewhat
tragic for the Cuban Revolution, a fiery sword which is going to liquidate
socialism and communism in Cuba (...). They do not know the Pope, they do not
know him (...). They are underestimating his intelligence, underestimating his
character, underestimating his thinking."
For that reason, as if in response to those deluding themselves, Fidel stated
at the farewell to the Holy Father, "I think we have given a good example to
the world: you, in visiting what certain people chose to call the last bastion
of communism; we, in receiving the religious leader to whom they wanted to
attribute the responsibility of having destroyed socialism in Europe. And there
were those prophesying apocalyptical events. Some even dreamed of them."
Unfortunately for those dreamers, Cuba demonstrated to the world that, despite
erroneous interpretations, socialism can be reconciled with religious faith.
Fidel confirmed that upon receiving the Pope. "There will not be any country
better prepared to understand your felicitous idea, as we understand it and
which is so similar to what we preach, that equitable distribution of wealth
and solidarity among human beings and peoples must be globalized."
AGAINST THE BLOCKADE
Fidel recalled the injustices being committed against the country. "Cuba, your
Holiness, is currently standing up to the strongest power in history like a new
David, a thousand times smaller, who in the same spirit of biblical times, is
fighting to survive against a gigantic Goliath of the nuclear age who is trying
to prevent our development by forcing us to surrender through sickness and
hunger. If that story had not been written then, it would have had to have been
written today. This monstrous crime cannot be ignored or excuses given for it."
For that reason, it was gratifying to hear the leader of the Catholic Church
condemn the U.S. blockade of Cuba, describing it as "restrictive economic
measures imposed from outside of the country, unjust and ethically
unacceptable."
At the same time he criticized neoliberalism, then in its apogee. "Economically
unsustainable programs are being imposed on nations, as a condition of
receiving more aid and the exaggerated enrichment of a few at the cost of the
impoverishment of many can be confirmed."
MESSAGES OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND GRATITUDE
"Dear Cubans, upon leaving this beloved land, I am taking with me a lasting
impression of these days and great confidence in the future of your homeland,"
John Paul II affirmed in his farewell address.
"I have experienced full and moving events with the people of God, on a
pilgrimage through the beautiful land of Cuba, which has left a profound
impression on me. I will take with me the memory of the faces of so many people
whom I have met during the last few days. I am grateful for your cordial
hospitality, a genuine expression of the Cuban soul."
His words were in response to all the affection shown him by the Cuban
population. Everyone – believers and non-believers – gave the Pope a massive
demonstration of hospitality and respect.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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