Interpretations of Church and state in Cuba, 1959-1961

Catholic Historical Review

Volumn 89, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 511-529

  Super, John C ^a  

^a WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950321605     PISSN: 00088080     EISSN: 15340708     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/cat.2003.0178     Document Type: Review

References (53)

1. Juan Clark, Cuba: Mito y Realidad. Testimonies de un Pueblo (Miami, 1990), which includes much of his Religious Repression in Cuba (Coral Gables: 1985);
2. John M. Kirk, Between God and Party (Tampa, Florida, 1989).
3. Kirk has also written several other important studies. See especially his "(Still) Waiting for John Paul II. The Church in Cuba," in Edward L. Cleary and Hannah Stewart-Cambino (eds.), Conflict and Competition: The Latin American Church in a Changing Environment (Boulder and London, 1992), pp. 147-165,
4. "Frente al Volcán: La Iglesia Católica en la Cuba pre-revolucionaria," in Vol. IV, Caribe, of Historia General de la Iglesia en América Latina (Salamanca, 1995).
5. Two helpful booklength treatments that are sympathetic to the Church are Manuel Fernández, Religion y revolución en Cuba. Veinticinco años de lucha ateista (Miami, 1984),
6. Pablo M. Alfonso, Cuba, Castro, y los católicos: del humanismo revolucionario al marxisme totalitario (Miami, 1985).
7. Two studies critical of the Church are Sergio Arce Martínez, The Church and Socialism: Reflections from a Cuban Context (New York, 1985),
8. Raúl Gómez Treto, The Church and Socialism in Cuba (Maryknoll, New York, 1989).
9. Damián J. Fernández, "Revolution and Political Religion in Cuba," in Matthew C. Moen and Lowell S. Gustafson (eds.), The Religious Challenge to the State (Philadelphia, 1992), pp. 51-71.
10. Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, Cuba. The Making of a Revolution (Amherst, Massachusetts, 1968), pp. 159-160.
11. For other examples see Margaret E. Crahan, "The Church and Revolution: Cuba and Nicaragua," La Trobe University Institute of Latin American Studies (1983), p. 1;
12. Hugh Thomas, Cuba. The Pursuit of Freedom (New York, 1971), pp. 683-684, 1127-1130;
13. Kirk, "(Still) Waiting," p. 152;
14. Jorge I. Domínguez argues that there was not a Cuban Church," International and National Aspects of the Catholic Church in Cuba," Cuban Studies, 19 (1989), 44-47.
15. Michel Malherbe, Les religions de l'humanité (Paris, 1990), p. 596.
16. As examples see Luis A. Pérez, Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, 2nd ed. (New York, 1995),
17. Jaime Suchlicki, Cuba. From Columbus to Castro, 2nd ed. (Washington, 1986).
18. Kirk, Between God and Party, pp. 45-46.
19. James W. Wilkie (ed.), Statistical Abstract of Latin America, vol. 30 (Los Angeles, 1993), p. 344.
20. Eduardo Cárdenas, La Iglesia Hispanoamericana en el siglo xx (1890-1990) (Madrid, 1992), p. 158.
21. Daniel H. Levtae, Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism (Princeton, 1992), p. 33.
22. For a summary see John C. Super, "Rerum Novarum in Mexico and Quebec," Revista de Historia de América, 126 (January-June, 2000), 63-84.
23. Marcos Antonio Ramas, "Religión en Cuba, 1959-1979," Diario las Americas, 16, January 1979), p. 5;
24. Margaret Crahan, "Fidel Castro, the Catholic Church and Revolution in Cuba," in Dermot Keogh (ed.), Church and Politics in Latin America (London, 1990), p. 256.
25. Salvador Larrúa Guedes, Grandes Figuras y Sucesos de la Iglesia Cubana (Santo Domingo, 1996), p. 183. Kirk recognizes this line of reasoning but concludes that most clergy wanted to "maintain the status quo." Kirk, "Frente," p. 350.
26. Though a minority, Kirk does recognize that a "large number of Catholic militants" were among the 20,000 who died (Between God and Party, p. 48-49).
27. For other references to specific priests (including pictures) consult Antonio de la Cova's web site on Cuba: http://www.rose-hulman.edu/delacova/ rebel-priests.htm
28. Mateo Jover Marimón, "The Church," in Carmelo Mesa-Lago (ed.), Revolutionary Change in Cuba (Pittsburgh, 1971), p. 403.
29. see Marcos Antonio Ramos, Protestantism and Revolution in Cuba (Coral Gables, 1989), p. 46.
30. Clark, Cuba, pp. 320-321.
31. For a day-by-day accounting of the early months of the revolution see Esteban M. Beruvides, Cuba: Anuario Histórico 1959. Abril-julio (Miami, 1997).
32. Margaret E. Crahan, "The Church and State in Cuba," Cuban Studies, 19 (1989), 7. Cuban priests were often at the executions, providing the last rites to prisoners (http://www.rose-hulman.edu/delacova/rebel-priests-1. htm).
33. Claude Julien, "Cuba: Revolution against Economic Imperialism," Cross Currents, 11 (Spring, 1961), 18.
34. Carlos Alberto Montaner, Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution, trans. Eduardo Zayas-Bazán (New Brunswick and London, 1981), p. 209.
35. "Open Letter from the Cuban Bishops to the Prime Minister," December 4, 1960, published in Alice L. Hageman and Philip E. Wheaton (eds.), Religion in Cuba Today. A New Church in a New Society (New York, 1971), pp. 274-275.
36. Aurelio Alonso Tejada, Iglesia y política en Cuba revolucionaria (Havana, 1992), pp. 14-17.
37. Leo-Paul Bourassa, "La pénétration communiste en Amérique Latine," Le Christ au Monde, 5 (1960), 363-370.
38. Luigi d'Apollonia, S.J., "Castro," Relations, 20 (July, 1960), 175-178.
39. Luigi d'Apollonia, S.J., "Plus catholique que l'Église," Relations, 21 (August, 1961), 212.
40. Raymond Pong and Carlo Caldarola, "China: Religion in a Revolutionary Society," in Carlo Caldarola (ed.), Religions and Societies: Asia and the Middle East (New York, 1982), pp. 562-564.
41. For a brief summary see Eduardo Boza Masvidal, Revolución cristiana en Latinoamérica (Santiago de Chile, 1963), pp. 71-74.
42. José María Gironella, On China and Cuba, trans. John F. Byrne (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1963), p. 122.
43. Kirk, "(Still) Waiting," p. 152.
44. Luigi d'Apollonia, S.J., "Castro," Relations, 20 (July, 1960), 177.
45. Leovigildo Ruiz, Diario de una Traicíon. Cuba 1961 (Miami, 1962), pp. 160-162.
46. Fidel Castro Ruz, Fidel y la Religion. Conversaciones con Frei Betto (Havana, 1985).
47. Granma, July 9, 1989.
48. Frederick C. Turner, Catholicism and Political Development in Latin America (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1971), p. 123. It is interesting to note that Turner does not discuss religious persecution in Cuba.
49. Harold Greer, "Baptists in Western Cuba: From the Wars of Independence to Revolution," Cuban Studies, 19 (1989), 69-70.
50. Margaret E. Crahan, "Freedom of Worship in Revolutionary Cuba," in Philip Brenner et al., The Cuban Reader: The Making of a Revolutionary Society (New York, 1989), p. 214.
51. Aurelio Alonso Tejada, "Catolicismo, política y cambio en la realidad cubana actual," Temas, 4 (October-December, 1995), 27, notes that it is difficult to make the distinction between the two, but concludes that there was not persecution.
52. Crahan, "Church and State in Cuba," pp. 10-11.
53. André Linard, "Guarded rapprochement between Rome and Havana," Le Monde diplomatique (January, 1998), www.monde-diplomatique.fr, p.2.