Читать книгу Fidel & Religion - Fidel Castro - Страница 11

PATHS TO A MEETING

I planned this work in 1979. I had proposed the idea of a book to be called La Fe en el socialismo (Faith in socialism) to Enio Silveira, my beloved editor and brother in God. In order to carry it out, I would have to travel in the socialist countries so as to get in contact with the Christian communities living under a regime classified as materialist and atheist. Many tasks forced me to set the idea aside; moreover, it would have proved too expensive.

Immediately after the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, the pastoral centers in Nicaragua invited me to offer advisory services in meetings and training, especially for the farmers. I went to that country two or three times a year to preach in spiritual retreats, give introductory Bible study courses, and help the Christian communities in articulating their life of faith with political commitment. I completed a program sponsored by the Center for Agrarian Promotion and Education that consisted of seven pastoral meetings with the farmers in the mountains of Diriamba, in El Crucero. Those trips enabled me to get to know the priests who served the people’s regime of Nicaragua. On July 19, 1980, I took part as an official guest in the celebration of the first anniversary of the revolution. That same evening, Father Miguel D’Escoto, the minister of foreign affairs, took me to the home of Sergio Ramírez, now vice-president of the republic. That was the first time I talked with Fidel Castro, whom I had seen that morning at the people’s rally, at which he had spoken.

I remembered the impact that his statements to the priests he had met with in Chile in November 1971 had made on me. I’d read them as a political prisoner in São Paulo, serving a four-year sentence “for reasons of national security.” On that occasion, he had said, “In a revolution, there are moral factors which are decisive. Our countries are too poor to give men great material wealth, but they can give them a sense of equality, of human dignity.” He said that on his protocol visit to Cardinal Silva Henríquez of Santiago, he’d spoken to him “about our peoples’ objective need to free themselves and of the need for Christians and revolutionaries to unite for this purpose.” He said that it wasn’t Cuba’s exclusive interest, since it didn’t face that sort of problem, but within the Latin American context, it was “an interest and a duty of all revolutionaries and Christians — many of them poor men and women of the people — to close ranks in a liberation process that is inevitable.” The cardinal gave the Cuban leader a Bible and asked if the gift annoyed him. “Why should it?” Fidel answered. “This is a great book. I read it, studied it as a boy, and I’ll brush up on many things I’m interested in.”

One of the priests asked him what he thought about the presence of priests in politics. “How, for example, can any spiritual guide of a human collective ignore its material problems, its human problems, its vital problems? Can it be that those material, human problems are independent of the historical process? Are they independent of social phenomena? We’ve experienced all that. I always go back to the time of primitive slavery. That’s also the time when Christianity emerged.” He observed that Christians had “gone from a stage in which they were persecuted to others in which they were the persecutors” and that the Inquisition “was a period of obscurantism, when men were burned.” Now, Christianity could be “a real rather than a utopian doctrine, not a spiritual consolation for those who suffer. Classes may disappear, and a communist society may arise. Where is the contradiction with Christianity? Rather than a contradiction, there would be a revival of early Christianity, with its fairer, more human, more moral values.”

Addressing the Chilean clergy, Fidel recalled the time he attended a Catholic school. “What was happening to the Catholic religion? A great slackening. It was merely formal and had no substance. Nearly all education was permeated with this. I studied with the Jesuits. They were strict, disciplined, rigorous, intelligent, and strong-willed men. I’ve always said this. But I also experienced the irrationality of that kind of education. Just between us, I tell you there’s great coincidence between Christianity’s objectives and the ones we communists seek, between the Christian teachings of humility, austerity, selflessness, and loving thy neighbor and what we might call the content of a revolutionary’s life and behavior. For, what are we teaching the people? To kill? To steal? To be selfish? To exploit others? Just the opposite. Responding to different motivations, we advocate attitudes and behavior that are quite similar.

We are living at a time when politics has entered a near-religious sphere with regard to human beings and their behavior. I also believe that we have come to a time when religion can enter the political sphere with regard to individuals and their material needs. We could endorse nearly all of the Commandments: Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal…” After criticizing capitalism, Fidel said, “There are 10,000 times more coincidences between Christianity and communism than between Christianity and capitalism… We should not create those divisions among men. Let’s respect convictions, beliefs, and explanations. Everyone is entitled to their own positions, their own beliefs.

We must work in the sphere of these human problems that interest us all and constitute a duty for all.” In regard to the Cuban nuns who work in hospitals, he stressed that “the things they do are the things we want communists to do. When they take care of people with leprosy, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases, they are doing what we want communists to do. A person who is devoted to an idea, to work, and who sacrifices himself or herself for others is doing what we want communists to do. I say this in all frankness.”

There, in Sergio Ramírez’s library, I remembered that talk between the revolutionary from the Sierra Maestra and the Chilean priests — I’m consulting it now — and it served as a basis for our exchange of ideas on the religious question in Cuba and the rest of Latin America. On that occasion in Chile, one of the participants asked him if his crisis of faith had taken place before or during the revolution. He answered that faith had never been inculcated in him. “I could say that I never had it. It was a mechanical, not a rational thing.” Recalling his experiences in the guerrilla war, he commented, “No churches had ever been built in the mountains, but a Presbyterian missionary went there and the members of some so-called sects did too, and they got some followers. They used to tell us, ‘Don’t eat animal fat.’ And they wouldn’t eat it; they wouldn’t eat it! There wasn’t any vegetable oil, and they went without lard for a whole month. That was their precept, and they abided by it. All of those small groups were much more consistent. I’ve heard that US Catholics, too, are much more practical in terms of religion — not socially, because when they went and organized the Bay of Pigs invasion and the war in Vietnam and other things of that sort, they weren’t being consistent. I’d say that the wealthy classes distorted religion and made it serve them. What is a priest? Is he a landowner? Is he an industrialist? I always used to read the discussions between the communist and Don Camilo — the famous priest in Italian literature. I’d say that was one of the first attempts to dispel that atmosphere…”

In connection with Cuba, a priest asked him to what extent Christians had been an obstacle to or a driving force in the revolution. “No one can say that the Christians were an obstacle. Some Christians participated in the struggle at the end; there were even some martyrs.

“Three or four students from the Belén College were murdered in northern Pinar del Río. There were some priests, such as Father Sardiñas, who joined our ranks on their own. An obstacle? What happened at the beginning was a class problem. It didn’t have anything to do with religion. It was the religion of the landowners and the wealthy. When the socioeconomic conflict erupted, they tried to pit religion against the revolution. That was what happened, the cause of the conflicts. The Spanish clergy was quite reactionary.” At the end of the long talk with the Chilean priests, Fidel Castro emphasized that the alliance between Christians and Marxists wasn’t just a matter of tactics. “We would like to be strategic allies, which means permanent allies.”

Fidel Castro returned to the topic of religion during his visit to Jamaica in October 1977, nearly six years after his trip to Allende’s Chile. This time, he was addressing a mainly Protestant audience. He reaffirmed that “at no time has the Cuban revolution been inspired by antireligious feelings. We based ourselves on the deep conviction that there needn’t be any contradiction between a social revolution and the people’s religious beliefs. All the people — including those with religious beliefs — participated in our struggle.” He said that the revolution had been particularly careful not to present itself to the Cuban and other people as an enemy of religion. “Because, if that had occurred, we would have been doing the reaction a favor, cooperating with the exploiters not only the ones in Cuba but the exploiters in all the rest of Latin America, as well.” He said that he’d often been asked, “Why must the ideas of social justice clash with religious beliefs? Why must they clash with Christianity?” He replied by saying, “I’m rather well versed in Christian principles and in Christ’s teachings. I believe that Christ was a great revolutionary. That’s what I believe. His entire doctrine was devoted to the humble, the poor; his doctrine was devoted to fighting against abuse, injustice, and the degradation of human beings. I’d say there’s a lot in common between the spirit and essence of his teachings and socialism.” He also went back to the theme of the alliance between Christians and revolutionaries, saying, “There are no contradictions between the aims of religion and those of socialism. There aren’t any. I was saying that we should form an alliance but not a tactical one.” Then, recalling his trip to Chile, he added, “They asked me if it was to be a tactical or a strategic alliance. I said it should be a strategic alliance between religion and socialism, between religion and revolution.”

Recalling those statements, I talked to Fidel about the evolution of the Christian base communities and about how the long-suffering believers’ faith, meditation on the Word of God, and participation in the Sacraments gave them the energy they needed to struggle for a better life. I felt that Latin America was divided not into Christians and Marxists but into revolutionaries and allies of the forces of oppression. Many communist parties had made the mistake of professing an academic atheism which estranged them from the faithful poor. No alliance could be maintained on the basis of theoretical principles and bookish discussions. Liberating practice was the ground on which Christian militants and Marxist militants would meet or not — since, just as there are many Christians who defend the interests of capital, there are also many who claim to be communists who never divorce themselves from the bourgeoisie.

Moreover, as a man of the church, I was particularly interested in the Catholic church in Cuba. What we said with regard to this specific topic is contained in the interview that is published here. Many of the topics that were discussed in the Managua talks are dealt with again in this interview. I have retained the impression that, as an individual, Fidel is a frank, sensitive person, someone you can ask any kind of question and even disagree with. Even though he says that he never had any real religious faith, he wasn’t totally immune to his training in Catholic schools, which was preceded by his coming from a Christian family.

Five days after our dialogue in Sergio Ramírez’s home, during a meeting I attended with some Nicaraguan priests and nuns, Fidel repeated the basic ideas he had defended in Chile and stressed in Jamaica. This group of Christians embodied an advance that Fidel himself hadn’t foreseen. The Sandinista revolution was the work of a traditionally religious people and had the blessing of the episcopate. It was the first time in history that Christians, motivated by their own faith, had participated actively in an insurrectional process with the support of their pastors. The Nicaraguan clergy insisted that this wasn’t a strategic alliance. There was unity between Christians and Marxists, among all the people. The comandante of the Cuban revolution responded that he had the “impression that the Bible has very revolutionary content; I believe that the teachings of Christ are very revolutionary and completely coincide with the aims of socialists, of Marxist-Leninists.”

Self-critically, he admitted that, “There are many doctrinaire Marxists. I think that being doctrinaire on this matter complicates the issue. I believe that both you and we should think about the kingdom of this world and avoid conflicts over matters related to the kingdom of the next world. There are still some doctrinaires around, and it’s not easy for us, but our relations with the church are gradually improving, in spite of many factors, such as this principle of antagonism. Of course, we’ve gone from a state of antagonism to one of absolutely normal relations. In Cuba, no churches are closed, and we’ve even suggested cooperating with the churches — in terms of materials, construction, and resources — that is, giving the churches material cooperation, just as we do with other social institutions. Our country doesn’t have to become a model of what I was saying, but everything seems to indicate that it will. This is even more the case in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Thus, the things I’ve said are beginning to be implemented in practice and historic reality. I think the churches will be much more influential in those countries than they were in Cuba, because the churches have been very important factors in the struggle for the people’s liberation, national independence, and social justice.”

Before leaving, the Cuban leader invited me to visit his country. I was able to do so for the first time in September 1981, as a member of the large Brazilian delegation that attended the first Meeting of Intellectuals for the Sovereignty of the Peoples of Our America. Apart from the meeting, the Americas Study Center and what is now the Office of Religious Affairs, headed by Dr. Carneado, invited me to give a series of talks on religion and the church in Latin America. Before I left Cuba, they proposed that I return to continue the dialogue that had been begun. I had the impression that, in connection with theological and pastoral matters, both the Cuban Communist Party and the Catholic church were still influenced by the conflicts that had arisen between them at the beginning of the revolution and, as a result, were kept from having a more open vision — one more in keeping with the great advances that the Latin American church had made since the Second Vatican Council (1963–65). I said I would be glad to accept the invitation if I would be able to serve the Cuban Catholic community as well. There was no opposition, and I attended the meeting of the Cuban Bishops’ Conference at El Cobre in February 1983 as a special guest. It was held at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity, the national patron saint, and the bishops supported my pastoral activity in the country.

When I gave editor Caio Graco Prado the manuscript of my book Qui son las comunidades eclesiales de base? (What are the Christian base communities?), which was published by the Primeros Pasos collection, and told him about my trips to Cuba, he suggested the idea of an interview with Fidel Castro on religious topics.

Between September 1981 and this interview, I’ve been to the island 12 times, thanks to the support of Canadian — and later, German — Catholics, who gave me the tickets, except for the times I came to attend some cultural event sponsored by the Cuban government. On one of those trips, I drew up a draft for the interview and the book but got no reply.

In February 1985, I returned as a member of the jury of the Casa de las Américas Literary Awards Contest. I was then invited to a private audience with Fidel Castro. It was the first time we talked in Cuba. Once again, we took up the subject we’d discussed in Managua, enriched by the discussion about liberation theology. The interest that this awakened in the Cuban leader led us to continue the dialogue during the next few days. We devoted nine hours to the religious question in Cuba and the rest of Latin America. I took up my plan for an interview again, and he accepted it for a later date. Editor Caio Graco Prado spared no efforts or resources to see it carried through. I returned to the island in May. Comandante Fidel Castro and I spent 23 hours talking about religion, the transcript of which follows below. I would like to express my special thanks to Chomi Miyar for his invaluable cooperation in recording and transcribing the tapes and to Minister of Culture Armando Hart, who encouraged the dialogue.

Frei Betto

Havana, May 29, 1985