IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
4. Camarioca and the Collapse of Reality
In the history of migration from Cuba to the United States, a chaotic period was witnessed in the fall of 1965 at the port of Camarioca in Cuba. Responding to U.S. President Lyndon B.
Johnson’s new policy of welcoming refugees from communism, in October hundreds of boats arrived in Camarioca from Miami: they were piloted by Cubans from the United States with the purpose of picking up thousands of family members and relatives from the island. What followed from the boatlift was the joint policy of Cuba and the United States, an orderly refugee movement that over the course of the next eight years allowed 260,000 Cubans to arrive in the United States by air. They were processed through the Cuban Refugee Program specifically established to receive Cubans through an open-door policy.190
The Church as well witnessed the repercussions of the massive exodus. In October 1965, the correspondence191 between Catholic Action’s lay leaders in Havana, Camagüey, Matanzas, Pinar del Río, and Santiago de Cuba focused on the acute crisis of the Camarioca boatlift and its implications for ecclesial life on the island.192 According to Emilio Roca Notó of Santiago de Cuba, some of the diocese’s clergy found themselves “indecisive and down” as a consequence of a speech by Fidel Castro declaring the boatlift an acute and recognized state of affairs. According to Roca Notó:
188 AHAH AC JF La Habana Boletín No 6, Mayo 1965.
189 AHAH AC JD La Habana Proyecto de la comisión para el plan de trabajo de la Junta Nacional de Acción Católica Cubana, sin fecha; AHAH AC JN Emilio Roca Notó to Raúl Gómez Treto 4.7.1965; AHAH AC JF CN Formación J.F.A.C.C. Consejo Nacional, Secretariado de Formación: Guía para la preparación de socias y grupos provinciales 1965.
190 Pedraza 2007, 4–5, 120–121; Ziegler 2007, 42–43; Uría 2011, 533–534.
191 See Appendix 3, picture 3.
192 AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Teresa de Rojas 22.10.1965; AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Teresa de Rojas 22.10.1965; AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Carlota Vidaud 25.10.1965; AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to C. P. 25.10.1965.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
157
… [The speech] has caused such a massive stir that not even a cat will stay. It’s sad to see how singular words can provoke the collapse of everything, the destruction of the very fatherland; what hope is there left if everyone leaves? - - And now let me tell you, I don’t even want to think about it, I only ask of God to guide us in fulfilling what he lays out for us.193
The announcement and ensuing boatlift of approximately 5,000 Cubans were unexpected, representing the first occasion in which the government had allowed Cubans to leave the country. The chaotically orchestrated boatlift came to an end after two months of operation due to the dangers posed to human life by sea exile on small, private boats. The exodus was transformed into the so-called Freedom Flights: a mutual agreement between Cuba and the United States allowing for Cubans to depart from the island to the United States on the twice-daily, five-days-a-week flights starting from the 1st of December 1965.194
The dialogue of Cuba’s lay Catholic leaders echoed the surprise and confusion following the rapid and massive exodus of their fellow countrymen—and also their Catholic peers in the Church. The letters also reveal the scope of the episode as a nationwide crisis, “the common story of Camarioca,” as described by Gómez Treto. In reference to the emotional confusion caused by the boatlift, and its repercussions for a sense of stability, Gómez Treto called the episode “a sorrow for all,” one shared by Cubans all over the island while also painstakingly experienced as the individual histories of families and communities.
The repercussions of the boatlift created an atmosphere of uncertainty and defeat among the laity of Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey.195 Immersed in the course of events and affected by members of the community making decisions to either leave or stay, laypeople in Havana, Santiago, and Camagüey were reminded by the Camarioca boatlift that the spheres of their lives as Catholics were inextricably intertwined in the revolution. In his letters, Roca Notó suggested that the developments taking place in ecclesial life, particularly for and by the laity, might come to a halt in Santiago de Cuba, at least until the anxiety caused by the boatlift came to an end.196 Implicitly expressed in the correspondence was also a mounting concern for decaying ecclesial participation as a result of the exodus. Quoting Felix Varela, the remarkable 19th century Cuban independence leader and Catholic priest, Gómez Treto affirmed that “we must continue to construct our altar with the ruins of what was demolished … and with something more.”
Referring to divine providence, Gómez Treto concluded: “This ‘something more’ is the ‘extra’
which we don’t have to think about too much for now, but later.”197
As Roca Notó implied, for Catholic communities it was not only the marginalizing effect of revolutionary policies that caused worry, nor was it just the distance between loyal revolutionaries and Catholics on the island; it was also the exodus of Catholics from Cuba to the United States and the internal tensions within the Church caused by their departure. In a
193 La causa principal fue el discurso del Comandante del Jefe, que aquí ha causado un revuelo tan grande que no se queda ni el gato. Es triste ver como unas palabras pueden provocar el desplomo de todo, la destrucción de la misma patria, ¿qué esperanza queda si todos van? - - Ahora esto te digo que no quiero ni pensar y solo le pido a Dios que nos ilumine para que hacer lo que el disponga. AHAH AC JN Emilio Roca Notó to Raúl Gómez Treto 11.10.1965.
194 Pedraza 2007, 120–121; Ziegler 2007, 42–43; Uría 2011, 533–534.
195 AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Carlota Vidaud 29.11.1965.
196 AHAH AC JN Emilio Roca Notó to Raúl Gómez Treto 11.10.1965.
197 AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Teresa de Rojas 22.10.1965; AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Carlota Vidaud 25.10.1965; AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to C. P. 25.10.1965.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
158
manner similar to the Cuban government criticizing those leaving of treason against the revolution and fatherland, voices within the Church criticized the migration as an unchristian solution to hardship. Yet lay leaders also expressed sympathy for those leaving home. In the unprecedented course of events in October 1965, Gómez Treto, as the president of Catholic Action, wrote to both Roca Notó and Vidaud that it was imperative for them to refrain as Catholics from making judgments about those who opted for migration:
In the end, we have to agree that this is a matter of conscience for each one, and in no case should we dream of reaping what we haven’t sown. We will not talk sense into those who have lost their minds; let us pray for them. - - And of course: let us not judge nor be judged (Mt. 7,1), for each one only knows where their own shoe treads.198
Gómez Tréto also assured Santiago’s lay leaders that in such a time of uncertainty, a Christian mindset of serenity was needed to cultivate patience and perspectives of hope. Gómez Treto suggested that the loss of members of the community should be entrusted to divine providence:
“God constructs his church with ‘living stones’: we pray his mercy for those who do not want to be or cannot be those [stones], and that others will take their place.”199 This, almost deterministic view of the Church echoed the idea of the Church as a simultaneously transcendent entity not limited by temporary or situational contexts; as the correspondence suggested, lay leaders sought solace in the belief that the Church would continue to exist, even though the human resources might diminish in number.
The crisis of Camarioca coincided with the hopeful aspirations for a new spring of the global Catholic Church: while Cuban Catholics were leaving the island, the final session of the Second Vatican Council at the Vatican was opened in September and closed in December. In the correspondence between Gómez Treto and other lay leaders on the island, the Camarioca boatlift was the first event fracturing the carefully maintained façade of optimistic prospects and trust in the Church as a supernatural, sacramental presence in the revolution. Similarly, Camarioca reflected the paradoxes embedded in the aspirations of the Cuban laity in post-conciliar Cuban ecclesial life. While the lay leaders portrayed themselves and the organizations they represented as active and productive units of civil society, membership and participation in their groups had declined dramatically. Laypeople publicly invested in the development of the Church were few; the great majority of parishioners had distanced themselves from daily participation. Many Catholics had either integrated themselves with the revolution or left the island. As suggested by subtle hints in tone, chosen words, theological references, and existential remarks in the correspondence, the architects of renewal were realists: they acknowledged the dire circumstances of the Church in the margins of the revolutionary reality and the lack of resources weighing the Church down.
Whereas Catholics had five years earlier considered the revolution as a temporary matter, in 1965 they no longer saw an end to the process in the aftermath of the Camarioca episode.
198 En definitiva hemos de convenir en que resulta un asunto de conciencia para cada cual y en ningún caso hemos de sonar con recoger lo que no hemos sembrado. No vamos a discutir razones con quienes hayan perdido en juicio: recemos por ellos. - - Y por supuesto: no juzguemos y no seremos juzgados (Mt. 7,1) que solo cada cual sabe dónde le aprieta zapato. AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Emilio Roca Notó 22.10.1965.
199 Dios construye su Iglesia con “piedras vivas”; roguemos a su misericordia por quienes no quieran o no puedan ser de éstas, que ya otras aparecerán en su lugar. AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Emilio Roca Notó 22.10.1965.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
159
Measures taken by the ecclesial hierarchy in anticipation of the normalization of the political and social order had been, one by one, proven unhelpful. The decision of the episcopate to refrain from offering public criticism or publishing materials had resulted in the disappearance of the normative voices within the Church. Correspondingly, the consolidation of the revolution had thus led the Church to estimate and reflect on its own consolidation within the revolution.
The Church no longer seemed to possess a role from which it could engage in civic activities and discourse on the course of the revolution like it had had in the first years of Castro’s rule.
Ideal citizenry was defined by participation and mass support for the revolution, and the Catholic Church was perceived as an alien, disloyal institution in the margins of revolutionary society. In public imagery, Catholicism and revolutionary ideology were no longer overlapping categories, and individuals had chosen between the two either voluntarily or by necessity.
During the Camarioca boatlift, the sense of changing times was an ever-present factor.
“History only serves us as experience. It should only be consulted like a textbook for studies, but never should the past be applied to the present moment,” wrote Roca Notó in his letter to Gómez Treto.200 A particular point of reference for Rota Notó was a passage in the New Testament emphasizing the current day’s issues instead of harboring worry about the distant future.201 He suggested that lessons could be learned from the past through the interpretative perspectives of faith: “It would be good to analyze the history produced by Camarioca in the light of the Gospel.”202 This suggests an interpretation of the Camarioca experience as a turning point in understanding Cuban history, a point of irreversible change in the course of the revolution. At the same time, it provides a window into how religious meaning-making was employed to forming a cohesive, comprehensive history of the revolution.
The experience of Gómez Treto and Roca Notó ultimately reflects what Orsi proposes as the dissolution of reality: a circumstance of “great urgency, distress, anxiety, and pain” by which
“the taken-for-granted quality of reality is dissolved and humans encounter the fictive nature of what they call real, in the sense that they apprehend the radical contingency of their worlds.”
As further suggested by Orsi, such moments often provoke “new uses of religious ritual, story, and metaphor, and new configurations of the real.”203 On a grander scale, this was the experience of Catholics in the revolution: the overturning of all life as it had been known, and the simultaneous struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy, ultimately and inevitably leading to a sense of disappearing landscapes and the assimilation of new religious thinking and action.
The dialogue between Gómez Treto and Roca Notó reveals that the Camarioca experience served as a marker in the shift in historical continuity for the Church as well. In light of the mass exodus, the traditional role of Catholic Action in Cuba no longer served as a linear reference point to the future. What lay ahead for the Church could not be predicted by understanding the past. Furthermore, in the eyes of the Church, what was ensuing in Cuba in the mid-1960s was not a result that could be directly reduced to a sum of the linear course of
200 La historia solo sirve para coger experiencia y solo debe ser consultado como libro de texto para su estudio, pero nunca para aplicar lo pasado al momento actual. AHAH AC JN Emilio Roca Notó to Raúl Gómez Treto 14.9.1965.
201 AHAH AC JN Emilio Roca Notó to Raúl Gómez Treto 14.9.1965.
202 Sería bueno que analizaremos a historia que lo de Camarioca ha producido, a la luz del Evangelio (por ej.
Mt.6, 33–34). AHAH AC JN Emilio Roca Notó to Raúl Gómez Treto 14.9.1965.
203 Orsi 2003, 173.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
160
historical events: the present seemed to consist of sporadic moments, and the past was an episodic collection of events not connected to each other by logic. This experience concurs with the broader conceptualization of the revolution as a process differing via its complexity in terms of both continuity and change. As argued by de la Fuente, the processes of the revolution
“cannot be comprehended in a linear logic of changes and continuities, as they occur in overlapping but disjointed scenarios and time lines.”204
As the discussion suggests, when attempting to maintain a sense of hope and purpose, the collapsing linearity of the past and unclear prospects of the future paved the way for an emphasis on the here and now. “We, here and in other dioceses, try to continue ‘searching for the Kingdom and its justice’ without worrying about tomorrow, convinced that we will receive in excess what we lack,” Gómez Treto reassured Carlota Vidaud.205 Hope belonged to the future, being also immaterial and otherworldly, as was emphasized by the themes constantly present in lay leaders’ correspondence: Christian faith in life after death, resurrection, and the full union of God and believers after the worldly struggle had ended.
As the past could not serve as a reference point and the future had suddenly become an unimaginable prospect not emerging from any logical conclusions drawn from experience, the only tangible reality was the present. Despite the rapid changes in the way the revolutionary process was experienced, life was lived in the here and now of Cuba, as was also acknowledged by the lay leaders: despite the sense of divine providence in the Church’s history, more immediate issues required attention from laypeople and clergy alike. With the growing number of Cubans leaving the island, those staying and still publicly committed to religion assumed more responsibilities in their daily engagement with the Church. “Pray for the tasks at hand.
Pray that the fruits of the work would not be something that pass but remain,” wrote Gómez Treto.206 Further reflecting Orsi’s perspective on lived religion, the meanings given to the Camarioca experience provide a powerful example of the dissolving religious reality of Cuban Catholics in the revolution. Triggered by the deep emotional disturbance and sense of the changing course of history, Camarioca became a collision point between religious and revolutionary worlds. Such intersections, as argued by Orsi, make visible “the explosive consequences for people, families, and political worlds at the juncture of intimate experience with political and social realities.”207
In the revolution of young men, Catholic laymen had been the first to leave the Church.
In 1965, the exodus of men caused particular worry and led Catholic Action to issue an urgent warning: if Catholic men previously well-integrated into religious associations and social participation as Catholics could not find a renewed sense of Catholic spirituality, better media for participation, or a way to remain committed as educated members of the laity, they would disappear beyond return.208 This relayed a larger cultural pattern of the revolution: while the process had created an all-encompassing overturning of public and private lives for all Cubans,
204 de la Fuente 2019, 291.
205 Nosotros, aquí y en las demás diócesis, tratamos de seguir “buscando el Reino y su Justicia” sin inquietarnos por el mañana seguros de que lo que nos falte lo recibiremos por añadidura. AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Carlota Vidaud 25.10.1965.
206 Pida por las misiones. Interceda para que el fruto de ellas no sea algo pasajero, sino que permanecza. AHAH AC JN Cooperadoras diocesanas to Raúl Gómez Treto 12/1965.
207 Orsi 2003, 173.
208 AHAH AC JN Emilio Roca Notó to Raúl Gómez Treto 14.9.1965.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
161
it had also fostered a particularly masculine culture, as discussed by Sierra Madero, among others.209 In the revolution of young men, ideal masculinity, and machismo, revolutionary culture both appealed to and expected the visible participation of men in its mass organizations, institutions of power, and public portrayals of militant support. In this world, religiosity was not a desirable attribute of masculinity, which led men to further distance themselves from the religious sphere.
The concern over Catholic men and their affiliation with the Church related to a deeper social division in the revolution. In the polarized atmosphere, individual social relations from Church to society had become increasingly difficult to sustain. According to interviewees, the division of Catholic and revolutionary Cubans affected individual lives on a daily basis.
Examples recounted particularly often had to do with the marriages of young adults: both archival sources and oral histories refer to young Catholic adults forming relationships with other Catholics with an emphasis on shared Catholic values of marriage and family as a counterforce to those promoted by the revolution.210
Particularly controversial for the Church, State, communities, and families were the marriages between militant Catholics and revolutionaries. Reflecting such social polarization were the cases of young Cubans from Catholic families dating militant communists and the
Particularly controversial for the Church, State, communities, and families were the marriages between militant Catholics and revolutionaries. Reflecting such social polarization were the cases of young Cubans from Catholic families dating militant communists and the