Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Cuba's top Catholic leader, received permission to read the message Christmas afternoon over the music station called Radio Musical Nacional, government and church sources confirmed.
The authorization was a sign of continued warming relations between Fidel Castro's government and the church nearly one year after Pope John Paul II visited the communist island.
The return of Christmas as a permanent holiday ``is a joy for the church and for the Cuban people,'' Ortega said in the 15-minute message.
``Now let us hope that it doesn't become a day of an imported Santa Claus,'' echoing the concerns expressed by church and Communist Party leaders alike that the day could become quickly commercialized.
``Let us not talk of beautiful festivities but of Jesus Christ.''
The government's rare authorization of a nationally broadcast message by the Catholic leader came a month after the government declared that Christmas Day would become an official permanent holiday. It granted Christmas as a one day holiday last year as a favor to the pope before his January 1998 visit.
Access to the official media has been one of the church's leading demands and was granted on a limited basis before and during the papal visit, which was covered extensively by government broadcasts.
Ortega had asked the government for permission to send a radio message that would explain to Cubans the Christian meaning of Christmas.
During his message, Ortega read passages from the Gospel of St. Luke, recounting the story of Jesus Christ's birth.
Cubans have embraced the idea of having another day off, but the resurgent celebrations remain largely secular.
Most families in the capital celebrated by decorating a small artificial Christmas tree in their home and sharing quiet holiday meals of roast pork with their families.
Still, as last year, hundreds crowded churches for midnight Christmas Eve services -- a tradition that has grown in recent years.
Early Christmas morning, most residents of Havana seemed to be celebrating the holiday by sleeping late. The capital's streets were more quiet than an average Sunday.
Ortega and other church leaders in recent days have emphasized the need to recapture the religious traditions of the holiday, largely forgotten here during the nearly three decades that Christmas was abolished.
Although the government declared itself atheist in 1962, Christmas remained an official holiday in Cuba until 1969, when the government was throwing its resources into an unsuccessful effort to harvest 10 million metric tons of sugar.
The government argued that holidays interfered with the harvest.
In late November, the Communist Party said mechanization had reduced the need for manpower in the sugar harvest and reinstated the holiday.
In 1976, Cuba's constitution guaranteed freedom of religion and in 1991, the Communists dropped its ban on religious believers. A year later, Cuba declared itself a secular rather than an atheist state.
© Copyright 1998 The Associated Press