Posted on 12/18/2001 2:17:16 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Cuba's Roman Catholic bishops on Monday said they were saddened that many of the island's families are separated by divorce and exile and called for family unity this holiday season.
In their annual Christmas message, the Conference of Catholic Bishops also remembered the Cuban families affected by Hurricane Michelle, which crossed the island in November.
The message was distributed to the news media Monday and will be read in Roman Catholic churches during Mass on Sunday.
Cuba's communist government declared Christmas an official holiday once again beginning in 1998, fulfilling a request by Pope John Paul II, who made a historic visit to the island in January of that year.
For many years under Fidel Castro's government, Dec. 25 was just another day on the calendar.
In recent years, Cubans have especially embraced the secular trimmings of Christmas, usually by placing small artificial holiday trees with blinking lights in their living rooms.
But most of the commercialism of Christmas so common in much of the world is unknown here, where advertising is rare and families do not have the disposable income to buy expensive presents.
Rather, Cubans celebrate Christmas simply with a family meal on Dec. 24th, followed by Midnight Mass for the devout among them.
``There are so many families divided, separated by divorce,'' reads the message. ``It is a minority of children and adolescents who can sit down with mama and papa on the night of the 24th, Christmas Eve, to eat Christmas dinner.''
They also recognized the pain of families who have relatives living outside of the country. ``For not a few this will be the first year that a brother, a daughter, a grandchild, a husband or a mother are absent.
``For many others, this is an old experience that they have never grown used to,'' the bishops added.
The prelates remember the victims of Hurricane Michelle, which destroyed thousands of homes and devastated crops in central Cuba. ``We are happy that our people have shown their solidarity in the face of this test, and because human sensitivity and Christian values have not been lost.''
Based on the government's view of normality, Cuban officials have impugned the sanity of persistent Castro critics, arguing in effect that opposition to the regime is so abnormal that dissidents must be mentally ill.
''Such a conceptualization has enabled the Cuban government to redefine some ecidivist' political activity as a form of mental illness," wrote two veteran Cuba analysts, Charles J. Brown and Armando Lago, in the 1991 book The Politics of Psychiatry in Revolutionary Cuba, published by Freedom House. [End Excerpt]
"Neighborhood watch" communist style: Cuba Wages Offensive on 'Over-Sized' Houses -- ``The day money is the factor behind distribution of the nation's properties is the day we will be divided into social classes. We will not allow that,'' said Juan Contino, who heads the movement of Cuba's state-affiliated neighborhood groups, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).
European Union Tells Cuba To Improve Human Rights
U.S. embargo of Cuba remains strongly in place, U.S. official says--[Excerpt] Gutierrez said the Bush administration's mission is ``to see a rapid, peaceful transition to a free and democratic Cuba,'' and that the embargo is a key component of U.S. strategy to do that.
``The United States has not changed any rules . . . or moved in any way to encourage these sales,'' Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez's statements were part of a Bush administration effort to dispel speculation that the food shipments scheduled to begin arriving in Havana this month could lead to more permanent trade relations between the two nations. [End Excerpt]
Bush mulls action on installing nominees (Recess Appointments for Reich and Scalia)
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