IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
2. The Struggling Church
After the radicalization period in the revolutionary process, the latter half of the 1960s saw the consolidation of Marxist ideology and the revolutionary framework in public and social life. As discussed by Guerra, for instance, the punitive power of the State became dispersed throughout the social system, employing citizens as deputies of the State by the mid-1960s.70 This further turned the revolution inwards: people became both the personification and mirror of the revolution.
In this environment, and with the dramatically declining resources for ecclesial work, laypeople assumed significant responsibility over sustaining the daily life of Catholic communities. In the community of San Judas y San Nicolas in Havana, the development was addressed by a reformation of lay structures. According to the laity of the community, “the existence of only one priest in the community obligates the laity to take charge of progress in
65 ACMINREX SS Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores to Mons. César Zacchi.
66 ACMINREX SS Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores to Mons. César Zacchi.
67 ACMINREX SS Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores to Mons. César Zacchi.
68 ACMINREX SS Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores to Mons. César Zacchi.
69 ACMINREX SS Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores to Mons. César Zacchi.
70 Guerra 2012, 23.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
138
the community.”71 Simultaneously, Catholic Action also conducted surveys on the conditions of parishes in both urban and rural settings, charting the mindset and attitudes of Cubans towards the activities and teachings of the Church.72
Vast amounts of archival sources reveal that within Catholic communities, Christmas and Easter were celebrated in open acclamation: by services, by the exchange of institutional greetings, and by collective celebrations in grassroots communities. Catholics prepared themselves for the celebrations intentionally, through public campaigns and lectures, retreats, meditation, prayer, and intensified liturgical preparations. The national Christmas campaign of Catholic Action in 1962 promoted Christian celebration of the nativity. The campaign was described to nuncio Zacchi by its lay organizers as “a wonderful festival, thanks be to God,”73 by which “with pure Christian joy, believers participated in worship in the Christmas season.”74 At the same time, Catholics celebrating Easter and Christmas were met with insults and threats from their neighbors, colleagues, and family members integrated into the revolution.75 Christian celebrations, such as Christmas and Epiphany, were also appropriated by the revolutionary media and placed in service of the revolution’s ideology and ethos.76
In 1963, the national committee of Catholic Action produced liturgical materials for the Lenten season, Easter, Advent, and Christmas, which had already been removed from the national calendar.77 In general, the number of printed materials ranged from 50,000 to 135,000 copies.78 In 1963, a new detail was introduced to the celebration as families were instructed to craft an Advent calendar consisting of a wreath and candles to be used at home in preparation for Christmas,79 suggesting that in the domestic sphere, Christmas was celebrated by Catholic families without interruptions. As an intermediary expression of the private moving into the public, annually on September 8 the traditional festivities of Virgen de La Caridad del Cobre, with the national patrona’s original effigy and its many replicated representations, were celebrated in local communities of all sizes and locations.80 Yet, since Pasqual processions could not be conducted publicly on the streets, Via Crucis was approached as meditative contemplation.81
In defense of the Christian family, Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre was harnessed as a unifying symbol of maternity and familial belonging. In 1963, the theme of the patron saint’s festivities on September 8 was the advocacy of the Virgin in families: families engaged in the ecclesial communities, and especially families unaffiliated with the Church were called to participate by prayer, liturgy, and devotion in order to bring them “under the protection of the
71 AHAH AC JN Parroquia San Judas y San Nicolas.
72 AHAH AC JN Letter to Antonio Martínez 14.8.1963.
73 AHAH AC JN AC JN G. P. to Mons. César Zacchi 16.1.1963.
74 AHAH AC JN Tesoreria 16.1.1963.
75 Interview 18.
76 Casavantes Bradford 2014, 77–78, 81–82.
77 AHAH AC JN Junta Nacional de Acción Católica Cubana to Cooperadoras diocesanas 16.1.1963; AHAH AC JN G. P. to Excme. y Rvdme. Mons. Alfredo Muller San Martin 9.4.1963.
78 AHAH AH JN G. P. to Juan Fernández Burges 30.10.1963a; AHAH AC JN G. P. to Juan Fernández Burges 30.10.1963b.
79 AHAH AC JN Consejo Nacional, Juventud Femenina de Acción Católica to G. P.; AHAH AC JN Campaña de Navidad 1963.
80 AHAH AC JN G. P. to Roger DeMontigny 9.8.1963.
81 AHAH AC JD La Habana Raúl Gómez Treto to M.A. Loredo 23.2.1965.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
139
Virgin.”82 Also, study materials promoting Christian matrimony were distributed nationally83 as part of a campaign for reinforcing the idea of Catholic family organized by the diocesan committee in Havana.84 Lay groups also campaigned nation-wide to introduce local priests to their communities, increasing the clergy’s visibility and helping bridge the gap between the clergy and unaffiliated laity. With leaflets, notice boards, and Masses to which the whole barrio was invited, priests were introduced to the people as “the one who prays for every believer,”
“the one who consoles us and approaches God in great affliction,” and “the one who sanctifies our families.”85 This discourse reveals a remarkable shift of dynamics: laypeople attempting to increase the clergy’s visibility and approval among the people.
On the level of religion as it was experienced and practiced in local communities, these examples challenge the top-down version of Cuban history in which the Church is an object of the revolution without autonomous agency. These details from each providence suggest, instead, that very similar patterns of agency and activity occurred within the Church. Most interestingly, these examples draw significant attention to the role of the laity and the agency of laypeople, expanding the preceding paradigm of treating the Church in Cuba synonymously with the institutional church, the offices of the Catholic Church on the island. In scholarly work on Cuban Catholicism in the revolution, the role assumed by the laity calls for a broader recognition of the concept “Church,” one ranging from institution to individuals and doctrine to practices and experiences of everyday life. Expanding the concept of the “Church” beyond the episcopal hierarchy and ordained clergy allows for a more nuanced, multifaceted understanding of the two-way process in which the Church in Cuba struggled to make sense of the revolution: the top-down process of the institutional church with its doctrine and tradition, and the bottom-up process of the laity at the grassroots level responding to the challenge of balancing their daily identities and lives at the intersection of life as Catholics, Cubans, and citizens of the revolutionary nation.
Despite the frantic campaigning by the militant laity, and their reinforced experience of agency, by 1964 the Church had lost the majority of its human and economic resources,86 its visible domains and activities in civil society, and a great number of the flock that used to enter the churches for worship. An atmosphere of fear had seized the Catholic communities at the grassroots level, causing the majority of the formerly practicing laypeople to distance themselves from the Church either by choice or necessity. Some of the laity were captured by the new ideology and genuinely assumed the belief system and grand narratives provided by the revolution. Others were intimidated by the polarization and saw it better to distance themselves from actors considered counterrevolutionary and antipatriotic. Some continued to
82 Bajo la protección de la Virgen. AHAH AC JN Festividad de Ntra. Sra. de la Caridad por Junta Nacional de A.C.C.
83 AHAH AC JN Junta Nacional de Acción Católica Cubana to Cooperadoras diocesanas 16.1.1963; AHAH AC JN G. P. to Excme. y Rvdme. Mons. Alfredo Muller San Martin 9.4.1963.
84 AHAH AC JN Calendario 1963; AHAH AC JN Guion para dos charlas: Responsabilidades de los padres de familia.
85 Quien ruega por todos los fieles --, quien consuela y acerca a Dios en las grandes tribulaciones - - , quien sanctifica nuestras familias - -. AHAH AC JN Día del Parroco 6/1963.
86 For instance, in 1964, laypeople were encouraged to donate regularly to their local communities in order to maintain the daily functions on congregational level. AHAH AC JN Formación de conciencia sobre el deber de los fieles en el sostenimiento económico de la Iglesia. Plan de la Junta Nacional de Acción Católica, diciembre 1964.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
140
support the Church and confess its faith but opted for the individual practicing of religion, invisible in the revolutionary public space and the performance of the revolution.
A small minority remained, claiming Catholicism as a visible identity and expressing it in the marginal space they were given within the frameworks of the revolution. All of this painfully served as a reminder that the Catholic identity of Cubans had not proven as steadfast as the ecclesial hierarchy had anticipated. That perhaps suggests why, for Cuban Catholics, it was a readily accepted privilege to belong to the Mystical Body of the Christ; membership in the universal church created a sense of global safety and cohesion among national churches, and the Holy See’s presence served to navigate ecclesial diplomacy in Cuba. A testimony included in an official piece of correspondence with a Mexican Catholic publication emphasized the commitment of Cuban Catholics to the global church—both in and off this world: “So, in our souls this wonderful feeling of fraternity has grown a lot in these recent times. We feel united, committed, and accompanied by all those who constitute the Mystical Body of which Christ is the head, and we and you its members.”87
Yet on the island, in the narrow frameworks of national identity anchored to the revolution, belonging to Christ’s body was also seen as a responsibility, almost a martyr-like sacrifice, one that lay Catholics readily reminded their peers of. When other domains of life threatened to override religious activities, or the fear of public opinion impeded laypeople from visibly engaging in their communities, lay leaders were blunt in reminding them about the responsibility of Cuban Catholics to build their communities: “Remember that we are the Mystical Body, that we need one another—in order to maintain our vitality, not as isolated units with independent functions,” wrote one member of a lay association to another.88 In the revolution, the Mystical Body’s Cuban members portrayed unity not only by thought, but also by public participation. For many in the laity, the requirement was too demanding.
Whereas in international correspondence Catholic Action’s members emphasized global belonging and community, in Cuba the correspondence discussed with more ambiguity the tightening frames of life for the Church. Institutional, official correspondence aside, on the island dioceses and Catholic militants discussed these matters not from a distance but within close acquaintance.89 In letters from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, militant lay Catholics called Archbishop Pérez Serantes “abuelo Enrique” because he intervened in the power struggles between the priests and lay militants of his diocese for the benefit of the laity.90 Correspondence such as this shows layers of shared experiences as traces of intimacy were inscribed in salutations and small remarks of warmth and friendship, in letters by and to both bishops and clergy as well as laity.
Through thousands of pages of correspondence, both within Havana’s circle of militant Catholics and from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Pinar del Río, Cienfuegos, and Camagüey, the letters reveal a sense of comradery: coming together in the face of a threat. In
87 Pues en nuestras almas ese hermoso sentimiento de la fraternidad ha crecido mucho en estos últimos tiempos.
Nos sentimos unidos, auxiliados y acompañados por todos los que constituyen ese Cuerpo Místico del que Cristo es la Cabeza y nosotros y ustedes sus miembros. AHAH AC JN Josefina Zaragoza to Sofía del Valle 13.7.1963.
88 Acuérdate que somos Cuerpo Místico, que necesitamos los unos de los otros – para mantener nuestra vitalidad, no células aisladas con funcionamiento independiente. AHAH AC JN Letter to Antonio Martínez 14.8.1963.
89 For instance, AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Pedro Meurice 13.6.1967.
90 Abuelo, eng. grandfather. AHAH AC JN Raúl Gómez Treto to Emilio Roca Notó 21.9.1965.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
141
this writing, the dire realities of life for the Church became visible. Hierarchical distances dissolved as lay leaders confided in their bishops with a tone of worry about the future of the Church on the island. In small remarks, individuals discussed what they were witnessing on a daily basis: diminishing participation and commitment, an atmosphere of fear and physical threats, declining economic resources, and faltering faith in the face of hardship.91
At the same time, the letters reflect both a quest for camaraderie and a struggle to maintain unity at a time of disruption. The Church in Cuba struggled to show the world it was surviving while also experiencing a deep disconnection from global Catholicism and a lack of interest of Catholics from other realities in knowing about and supporting the Cuban Church in its struggle.
The experience was made all the more dystopian by the ongoing council, which provided Cuba simultaneously with realistic tools of self-reflection and utopian visions of an ideal church that hardly corresponded to the realities of ecclesial life in the revolutionary reality. The grand lines of the council—openness to the world, dialogue within differences, the bold presence of the Church as a sign of hope for the world—seemed to underscore the plight of the Cuban Church:
the paralyzing fear experienced by individuals and communities, confrontations, and reduced resources for daily work. As the Church in Cuba increasingly struggled to maintain hope, it became more difficult for the Church to serve as a beacon of light for the people.
In the everyday reality, the Church was struggling against the overwhelming support of Cubans for the revolution. “It was a difficult time,” recalled a laywoman who had participated in the revision of lay agency in a town in central Cuba:
Not only because of the situation of the church, but also because … Look, churches were always in the middle of the neighborhoods, like next to the park where people spent time. There were always people watching, knowing who participated in what, and who was a militant in the Church.92
In her study, Schmidt recounts the experiences of devotees of La Virgen de La Caridad and their fear of visiting the national shrine, with informants keeping track of visitors to churches.93 These experiences reveal the impossible imperative of living a double life faced by the laity: to participate in the life of the Church as active, committed lay Catholics, while also facing the realities of suspicion, monitoring, and public rejection, which often varied from towns to vil-lages, often depending on the attitudes of local State authorities. Catholic communities faced very different realities of everyday life depending on their location on the island.
While the reinforcement of lay agency began and was received in the cities of Havana and Santiago de Cuba with a sense of urgency and necessity, other areas were struggling with a lack of both human and material resources, which had become an obstacle for maintaining regular functions. A comparison of the dioceses of Havana and Santiago de Cuba to the diocese of Pinar del Río is particularly striking. In 1965, the sites seemed to correspond to different realities: whereas Havana was already taking its first steps at redefining lay participation, the rural diocese of Pinar del Río was coming to terms with having almost no lay participation at
91 For instance, AHAH AC JN G. P. to Nidia García 3.4.1963; Interview 4; Interview 14; Interview 15.
92 No sólo por lo que estaba pasando en la vida de la Iglesia sino… Mira, siempre se encuentra una iglesia en el centro, en los barrios, en los parques donde estaba la gente… Siempre hubo gente allá cerca, vigilando, sí sabían quién estaba participando, quién era un militante en la Iglesia. Interview 19.
93 Schmidt 2015, 228–229.
IV TESTIMONY OF LIFE: 1962–1968
142
all. A survey conducted in the spring of 1965 revealed these mounting difficulties of lay com-mitment and activity on a congregational level. A parish priest in the village of Candelaria, located in western Cuba, included in his report a comparison between organized lay movements in pre- and post-revolutionary settings:
There were four groups of Catholic Action, the Third Order of the Franciscans, the Confraternity of La Virgen de la Caridad. At the moment, there is not even a trace of these associations nor Catholic Action.
There is absolutely nothing left.94
According to the priest, the local parish had lost all its lay institutions by 1965. What was left were single individuals participating in the life of the Church:
Amidst the inactivity of the groups of Catholic Action, which already vanished, and the associations that used to exist, there are a few faithful who assist with catechism in the parish - -, with visiting the sick and saying the rosary in the homes of the deceased if it is requested.95
Similar experiences from several dioceses were recounted by both the clergy and laity in the interviews.96 These accounts suggest that in ecclesial life, there were also cultural and mental distances between cities and rural areas, in addition to the differences in material resources.97 Yet many of the rural histories remain undisclosed, as histories from Havana came to dominate the narratives as the capital site of the contest for both resistance and repression.
Numerous records such as the one quoted above speak of the frustration among the clergy in the work at hand. The loss of material resources was experienced as an injustice, and a sense of being left alone tormented the priests, who witnessed a significant decrease in par-ticipation and the public practicing of religion. Some documents written by the clergy, particu-larly those residing in rural areas and serving small communities, point towards a lack of com-munication and understanding between the diocesan clergy and ecclesial hierarchy. “It was like another world,” recalled one of the priests attending a rural community in eastern Cuba in the mid-1960s, “where the bishops, the hierarchy, lived.”98