Cuba's Cardinal Jaime Ortega complained Tuesday that the Cuban government has denied the church sufficient media access to promote Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit, but said its overall attitude has been ``favorable.''

Ortega appeared less angry than hopeful for improvements as he repeated his gripe against the government-monopolized media at least four times during one of his rare news conferences.

``We have had very little access to the media,'' he said. ``We would have wanted more access to television.''

The Roman Catholic Church had asked for media access to spread the tidings of John Paul's Jan. 21-25 visit to a Cuban people whose government eased its repression of religion only a few years ago.

But the government has not responded to the church requests, and has not even announced whether it will broadcast any of the Masses the pontiff is scheduled to celebrate in Cuba.

Ortega also said that while the government seemed overly worried about maintaining public order at church events, the church is ``more interested in opening access to expressions of faith.''

``These two conceptions have provoked some difficulties,'' he said, although he had nevertheless perceived ``more favorable, open and less rigid attitudes'' by the government toward the church in the past few years.

He has asked the government to declare Christmas Day a national holiday, as most Latin American countries do, but has yet to hear back from the Cuban Communist Party, Ortega said.