Cuba to let more clergy into country

Associated Press

As the visit of Pope John Paul II nears, Cuba has announced it will allow 57 more foreign priests and nuns to work in the country, helping the island's small corps of Roman Catholic religious workers.

The announcement was made Wednesday night on Cuban state television, which also broadcast a program commemorating President Fidel Castro's visit to the Vatican a year ago.

The 28 priests and 29 nuns will come from Colombia, Spain and Haiti, church authorities told reporters in Havana.

Church officials had insisted that Cuba allow more foreign priests as a condition for the papal visit, scheduled Jan. 21-25. Late last year Cuba authorized 15 more foreign priests and 24 nuns.

The island now has about 240 priests and about 400 nuns. Roughly half are foreign.

Cuba's government embraced official atheism in 1962 and expelled 132 foreign priests, most of them hostile to Castro's 1959 revolution. Many other priests fled in the early 1960s.

The government never barred religious observance, but restricted churches and forbade religious believers to hold key posts or belong to the Communist Party.

Official atheism was dropped in 1992, as was the ban on party membership for believers.

The government has authorized a series of open-air Masses for the first time since the early 1960s and has promised to expand national media coverage of preparations for the papal visit. It also vowed to help provide transportation to the Masses.

The church began distributing fliers this week describing the purpose of the pope's visit and explaining the structure of the Vatican to Cubans who have received little religious information in recent decades.

One said that the pope ``is not a tourist'' nor ``a politician of the left nor of the right.''

It said he comes ``to promote a spirit of reconciliation among all.''