The 1959 Castro-led revolution installed an atheist, Communist government that sought to exchange the Catholic Church because the guiding force within the lives of Cubans.
But 65 years later, religion seems omnipresent in Cuba, in dazzling diversity.
The bells toll on Catholic churches and the decision to prayer summons Muslims in Havana. Buddhists chant mantras as they gather at a jazz musician’s home. Jews savor rice, beans and other Cuban staples for Sabbath dinner. Santeria devotees dance and slap drums in a museum stuffed with statues, paying homage to their Afro-Cuban deities.
It’s also visible within the growing ranks of evangelicals who worship across the island, in the religion of LGBTQ+ Christians who sing at an inclusive church within the seaport of Matanzas, or within the pilgrims who travel to the distant shrine of Cuba’s patron saint within the shadow of the Sierra Maestra mountains.
Critics say Cuba still falls short on religious tolerance. The U.S. State Department has designated Cuba a “Country of Particular Concern” for having engaged in or tolerated severe violations of spiritual freedom.
Cuba’s structure includes provisions for religious freedom and bans religious-based discrimination. But a recent State Department report says provisions in Cuba’s penal and administrative codes “contravene these protections.” The report says the Cuban Communist Party requires religious groups to be officially registered, “and membership in or association with an unregistered group is against the law.”
The report says the Office of Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Justice proceed to withhold registration to some groups, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Some academics and spiritual leaders say more strides toward full religious freedom are needed, comparable to easing the method to construct houses of worship, allowing access to state-owned media to spread faith-based messages, and reestablishing private religious schools. But there’s been significant progress; some call it a time of Cuban religious revival.
“I don’t know whether the religious revival has occurred in Cuba consequently of the (evangelical) Protestants involvement within the island, or consequently of the frustrations of the Cubans, or the results of a tolerance that the Cuban government seems to point out toward religion,” said Jaime Suchlicki, former director of the University of Miami Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
“Maybe a mixture of all these aspects have really revived religion within the island.”
More than 60% of Cuba’s 11 million persons are baptized Catholic, in keeping with the church. Experts estimate that as many, or more, also follow Afro-Cuban traditions comparable to Santeria that intermingle with Catholicism.
“Cubans are believers, but sometimes they consider in the whole lot,” said Monsignor Ramon Suarez, chancellor of Havana’s Catholic archdiocese.
Cuba’s religious landscape is just too diverse to suit easy categorizations, said Maximiliano Trujillo, a Havana University philosophy professor.
“There’s a really unique religiosity,” he said. “In Cuba, it’s not unusual that somebody goes to satisfy a babalao (Santeria high priest) within the morning and might visit a Pentecostal temple within the afternoon, and at night goes to Mass – and doesn’t see any variety of conflict in its spirituality.”
Today, diverse beliefs may be found mixed together on altars in homes, with the Virgin Mary sharing space with a ceramic Buddha and a warrior spirit from the Afro-Cuban faith.
But when Suarez did his military service as a young seminarian, he kept his Bible hidden, fearing it might get confiscated.
“You couldn’t say anything about religion,” said Suarez.
The Catholic Church took an anti-communist stance shortly before Fidel Castro declared Cuba to be socialist in 1961. The government later accused outstanding Catholics of attempting to topple Castro. Public religious events were banned after processions transformed into political protests, sometimes turning violent.
Hundreds of foreign priests were expelled. Private schools, including greater than 100 Catholic schools, that had operated across Cuba were nationalized.
Many Cuban priests were sent to military-run labor camps within the mid-Sixties. The government became officially atheist; religion was not allowed and believers of all faiths were banned from Communist Party membership.
Church-state relations began to warm three a long time later when Castro met with evangelical leaders and representatives from the local Jewish community. In 1992, the federal government dropped its constitutional references to atheism. The first papal visit to the island, Pope John Paul II in 1998, marked a turning point that led to government acceptance of some outdoor religious events and the celebration of Christmas outside churches for the primary time in several a long time.
Arguably the preferred religion in Cuba is Santeria, which fuses Catholicism with Afro-Caribbean traditions.
Santería was born as a type of quiet resistance amongst Cuba’s Black communities. It dates back centuries to when Spanish colonists brought a whole bunch of 1000’s of enslaved Africans to Cuba, many from the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria.
The Spanish tried to force Catholicism on the enslaved, however the Africans who made that transatlantic voyage brought their very own religions, camouflaging them by attaching symbols of their orishas – Yoruba deities – to Catholic saints.
Santeria long remained on the political margins on account of its scattered, nonhierarchical nature and centuries of taboo and racism. In recent years, it has grown in prominence.
Beyond Catholicism and Santeria, Cuba has quite a few smaller but vibrant faiths. Among them:
JUDAISM
At Cuba’s largest synagogue, ancient Jewish traditions and Cubanness often mix. At times, Sabbath dinners at Beth Shalom include Cuban black beans and rice.
Jews are believed to have arrived in Cuba with Christopher Columbus in 1492, however the Cuban community officially began within the early twentieth century, said Hella Ezkenazi, vice chairman of Cuba’s Hebrew Community. After WWII, more European Jews arrived.
The community grew to an estimated 15,000 at its peak within the Fifties, but most emigrated to the U.S. after the 1959 revolution when a lot of their businesses where confiscated. Today, there are about 1,000 Jews living in Cuba.
ISLAM
The only mosque in Havana opened in 2015 and the Muslim community has grown to about 2,500 people nationwide, said Ahmed Aguero, certainly one of the mosque’s leaders.
“We’re pioneers in spreading the faith here,” he said. “Sometimes they’ve a nasty impression of Muslims, they fear that we’re bad and even terrorists, until they meet us and so they learn concerning the real practice of our religion.”
BUDDHISTS
Twin brothers Yasnel and Yasmel Quintana were raised in an Afro-Cuban family that follows Santeria, but they never practiced that faith. Ten years ago, they joined the local branch of Soka Gakkai, a world Japanese Buddhist organization.
On a recent Sunday, they went to the house of Cuban jazz musician Cesar Lopez and his wife, Japan-born Seiko Ishii, where group members often meet to meditate.
“Buddhism became our first and only religion, where we felt identified and grew spiritually,” said Yasmel.
Soka Gakkai is present in greater than 190 countries, in keeping with the group. In Cuba, it grew from a couple of people in 2015 to about 500 today.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely chargeable for this content.
