Pope Benedict XVI ended his three-day visit to Cuba on March 28 with an appeal for more religious freedom for the Catholic Church, ahead of a highly anticipated meeting with the island’s historic leader, Fidel Castro.
And while he stopped short of openly criticizing the island’s Communist regime during the trip, Benedict nonetheless said Cuba needed “change” and a “renewed and open society.”
Catholics weren’t the only ones glad to see Pope Benedict XVI preach in Cuba, however. His visit benefited local and visiting Christians across denominations, said American Protestants involved with Cuban missions work.
Benedict’s presence boosted improvements for Cuban Christians and missionaries that have been ongoing for years, said Alvin Padilla, a Presbyterian minister and dean of Hispanic Ministries at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston.
The scope and rate of missions work in Cuba began to escalate in the 1990s, when the Soviet bloc collapsed, and has improved in spurts since. The Obama administration has also made it easier to get to Cuba, some missionaries said.
Statistics bear witness to the changes. Echo Cuba, a Miami-based humanitarian aid group, reported about 201,000 Cuban Protestants in 1989 and around 460,000 a decade later. According to the U.S. State Department, that number hit 550,000 by 2009, the most recent year for which it has numbers.
Most are Baptists followed by various Pentecostal groups then Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians, government statistics show.
Catholics, however, still hold sway. About 60 percent of the island’s 11.4 million people were Roman Catholics in 2009.
And many of them will continue to benefit from the pontiff’s visit well after it’s over, Padilla said.
“When the pope goes there, people realize they don’t have as much to fear from the Christian church as they once thought,” he said of Communist leaders.
That could be, but Southern Baptist Tim Maynard doesn’t expect Cuban missions work to become a cakewalk any time soon. Maynard is the pastor of Fruit Cove Baptist Church, a northeast Florida congregation heavily involved in missions work in Cuba.
He was on a Cuban missions trip two years ago and found Christians continuing to struggle with decaying churches and burdensome religious restrictions.
Benedict’s visit will likely contribute to the success of all missions groups in the long run, said Craig Culbreth, lead strategist for the Missional Support Group of the Florida Baptist Convention.
While in Cuba in late March, Culbreth said he found Communist officials much more willing than usual to discuss religious restrictions because the pope was about to arrive.
Faith had become a part of the daily conversation in Cuba, he added. “For me, if you can change the conversation, then you can change people.”
(ABP)
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