The AP does Christmas in Cuba

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

source - jgperez@netzero.net

[Well there they go again. Note how this innocent little story gets
poisonously slanted.

["Christmas was never banned outright."'  The truth is it was never
banned. Period. Full Stop.

["Religious observances were not encouraged," meaning of course, that
people in Cuba enjoy religious freedom, not just to practice whatever
religion they please, but also to be free from official pious
propaganda. Unlike the United States, where government officials and
institutions are an unending campaign to promote religious
observances, mostly Christian.

["Cuba became officially atheist" --a complete fabrication-- "a
status that was not rescinded until the early 1990s." Needless to
say, another lie. The Cuban state is *secular*, not atheist.

[And that's just in the second paragraph!]

[It is true, however, that people were a little resentful of the main
organized Christian religion, the Papist sect. That's because the
robed reactionaries of this outfit overwhelmingly sided with the
counterrevolution and many actively aided the CIA.

                             *  *  *

Cuban Catholic Church recovers lost Christmas traditions

HAVANA (AP) - With readings about Jesus' birth and strains of
Handel's 'Messiah,' Cuba's Catholic Church has begun Christmas
observances, five years after day was named an official holiday.

Christmas was never banned outright, but it did lose its official
holiday status in the early years of Fidel Castro's regime. Religious
observances were not encouraged. And Cuba became officially atheist,
a status that was not rescinded until the early 1990s.

Castro declared Christmas a holiday in December 1997 in honor of Pope
John Paul II's historic visit to the island the following month.

Diplomats and government officials were among hundreds of people who
attended a Christmas concert late Sunday night in Havana's 18th
century cathedral. Presiding was Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the island's
highest ranking Catholic churchman.

"Things are now taking their course," Orlando Marquez, spokesman for
the Cuban Conference of Bishops, said of the slow recovery of
Christmas traditions.

"Many people are looking to the church for the things they cannot
find," said Marquez. "It is now stabilizing."

With Christmas traditions now again taking hold, the church keeps
pressing for a larger opening, including more access to
state-controlled media and the right to establish religious schools.

 
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nytmed-12.26.01-01:01:48-3063