BOB ABERNETHY: Before the pope's arrival, Fidel Castro said he was determined to show the world that Cuba is a land of religious tolerance. But the relationship between religion and revolution in Castro's Cuba has had a stormy history. Maureen Bunyan reports on the recent warming trend and looks at what's on the horizon for Cuba's churches after the papal visit.MAUREEN BUNYAN: It wasn't long ago that this kind of fervor was reserved for heroes of the Cuban revolution. Today, hands and hearts are almost as likely to be lifted in the name of religion as in the name of revolution. Evangelical and Protestant churches are growing. The small Jewish community is thriving and so is the Catholic Church. Every Saturday, crowds of Cuban families flock to the Church of the Virgin of Charity in Havana to have their children baptized.
Father RAMON SUAREZ PULCARI (Church of the Virgin of Charity): In the past 10 years, there's been a huge increase in baptisms, including adults, because of the more tolerant atmosphere.BUNYAN: The more tolerant government attitude towards religion has been a long time in coming. Thirty-seven years ago in the street outside this very church, a procession planned for the Virgin of Charity turned into an antigovernment demonstration. Fidel Castro blamed the increasingly vocal Catholic Church. The antireligious backlash affected both Protestants and Catholics.
Reverend MIRIAM OFELIA ORTEGA (Presbyterian Minister): It was a difficult time. If you were a religious person, in the mind of many people, you are a counterrevolutionary because you are religious. Then they look at you as a can of suspicion.
BUNYAN: So for nearly three decades, religion became mainly a private matter. Believers were barred from the Communist Party. And faced with discrimination, only the most devout openly professed their faith.
Rev. ORTEGA: It was not to be in jail or to be tortured; it was more subtle. Of course, it was a big mistake that the revolution did, that they recognize afterwards this mistake.
ISIDRO GOMEZ (Communist Party Official): We understand that to have an atheist position, it was not fair. I mean, it wasn't really the best thing to do because many of the Christians were revolutionary.
BUNYAN: In 1992, Cuba's national assembly changed the constitution to make Cuba a secular, not an atheist, state -- officially ending discrimination.
ROLANDO SUAREZ (Director, Caritas Cuba): Sometimes they suspect we are trying to run their mind of revolution. They don't say it to us in that way, but I feel that, no. We are trying to prove that it's possible to the Church to do something that it's not able to do.
