``Forgive your people, Lord,'' the believers intoned, walking behind a group of children from Our Lady of Charity parish, dressed as Mary, Jesus, Roman soldiers and all the characters from a typical passion play.
It was the second Good Friday in a row that the parish in Central Havana has organized the processional Viacrucis, or Stations of the Cross, since Pope John Paul II's historic visit in January 1998.
Many see it as a sign of increasingly warm relations between the church and the communist state, which once was officially atheist.
``The pope's visit really animated people,'' said Yvon Arias, 47, a lifelong Roman Catholic who was baptized and married in the church.
Unlike Christmas, Holy Week and Easter are almost exclusively religious holidays here, she pointed out. For her, the public observance of some of the church's more somber holy days are proof of greater freedom for the church.
``People celebrate Christmas for many reasons, not just for the birth of Jesus Christ,'' she said. ``Holy Week is fully religious.''
Religious processions were discouraged and in some cases banned in the early years after the January 1959 triumph of the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.
Such processions in those years were used by some to protest against Castro's newly communist government and were quickly quashed.
Although common in the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, younger Cubans have no memory of Good Friday processions. On Friday, scores of curious people peered out of doors and windows of dilapidated buildings as the procession wound its way through the neighborhood.
``What are they doing? Making a movie?'' a teen-age boy asked as he sped by on a bicycle.
The black-bearded, white-robed boy of about 8 years playing Jesus kept his head bowed as the boys wearing the garb of Roman soldiers slapped him with their toy swords.
``It will take people a while to learn,'' said Arias. ``This is a sign of an opening for the Christian faith.''
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press