.c The Associated Press
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Some Cuban authorities have been harassing people attending Masses in an effort to undermine a visit by Pope John Paul II, a Vatican news agency said Tuesday.
Security forces are videotaping the services and sending spies to infiltrate Roman Catholic groups, said Fides, the information service of the Vatican's missionary arm.
The harassment is a sign of the division within the Communist party between "reformers and conservatives,'' Fides said.
The government ended its open repression of the Catholic Church after Cuban leader Fidel Castro visited the Vatican last year and invited John Paul to Cuba.
While Masses have always been public in Cuba, the agreement that paved the way for the papal visit, scheduled for Jan. 21-25, guaranteed greater freedoms for Catholics.
The agency said some disillusioned Communists, including company, party and even security officials who attended the Masses, have disappeared afterwards and remain absent from their jobs for weeks at a time. They "undergo interrogations and threats,'' it said.
Fides said its source was an unidentified group of Cuban faithful.
It said that since March and April, employees have been told during twice-monthly workplace assemblies that they will be fired if they attend the pope's Masses.
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