The Cuban government's treatment of the Roman Catholic Church has swung between good and bad -- even menacing -- in the past two weeks as both sides put the finishing touches on plans for Pope John Paul II's visit in January.

The church has scored some victories, but it has also had some losses on issues like advance publicity for the visit.

Supporters of President Fidel Castro and some church officials say Havana is continuing to open significant spaces for the church in the once atheist system, despite the remaining restrictions.

``We have clearly entered a new period in history, even if the government does not want to lose all control of the situation,'' a journalist in Havana said last week.

On the plus side of relations between the Catholic Church and the state, both sides point to Havana's announcement Nov. 19 that it would issue visas to 26 foreign priests, 29 nuns and one lay brother who will work as missionaries in Cuba, where many priests are foreign-born.

That was the church's single largest victory in a visa war with Castro's government. From 1959 to 1996, the number of priests in Cuba dropped from 723 to 269 and the number of nuns from 2,225 to 437.

``We have a dialogue with the Catholic Church . . . and we reply to [church] requests in full harmony and in accordance with the interests of both parties,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said.

But the government took negative stands on other issues, especially on the critical issue of church access to state-monopoly TV and radio to spread the news of the pope's visit.

Cuba's TV plans

Communist Party officials announced that the government would produce its own programs on the church, the pope and his Jan. 21-25 visit, and broadcast them at the rate of about one a week.

They did not reply to church requests to broadcast three TV and 12 radio programs produced by the church. Cuban officials often sidestep the need to reject a request by leaving it unanswered.

As for the church's repeated requests for local TV broadcast of papal ceremonies, the Rev. Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, former vicar of Havana, said recently that he believed the government would show only the pope's Jan. 25 Mass in Havana.

In one ominous statement, government officials threatened to sanction anyone who displays papal posters on state buildings, a tough limit on publicity in a country where the government owns most buildings.

And while the government has promised to provide transportation to papal ceremonies, church officials remain concerned that the government will keep attendance low by providing too few vehicles.

Spreading the word

``The best method of transportation will be on foot,'' Cardinal Jaime Ortega said last week at one of the open-air Masses held around Havana to drum up enthusiasm for the pope's first visit to communist-ruled Cuba.

In another reflection of the inch-by-inch battle between church and state for control of papal publicity, Ortega complained after the Mass that he would have preferred to celebrate it in a public park.

The Mass was held in the sprawling gardens of the church's Santovenia home for the elderly. Government officials forced church workers to place all banners and loudspeakers facing inward instead of toward the street, people at the Mass said.

Catholic lay activists around Havana say there has been a small but noticeable increase in recent weeks in the number of Communist Party members attending Mass, apparently to monitor and report on homilies.

Also reflecting church concerns, the church committee arranging the pope's visit abandoned offices provided by the government in a hard-to-reach Havana suburb and moved into a former convent in central Havana to be more accessible to the public.

No meeting with cardinal

And while Castro met for several hours Nov. 21 with about 70 leaders of Cuba's evangelical churches, he has yet to hold an official meeting with Ortega, who was named cardinal by John Paul II in late 1994.

The government's continued restraints on the church have fueled speculation, among both church and government officials in Havana, that Castro will again tighten controls on the church once John Paul leaves Havana.

``I am hearing it from both sides,'' said one Havana journalist, ``that things will get tough again when the pope ends his visit and the last journalist leaves.''

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald