VATICAN CITY – Calling it “unjust,” Pope John Paul II denounced the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba on Friday in a speech to Cuban bishops visiting the Vatican.
“Restrictive economic measures imposed from outside… (are) unjust and ethically unacceptable,” said the pope, who has made similar statements in the past.
The pontiff praised the bishops for their efforts to revive the Roman Catholic faith on their island nation, saying the Cuban people have a spiritual thirst unsatisfied by the secular world’s “old ideologies.”
He recalled his visit to Cuba in 1998, which led Cuban leader Fidel Castro to grant more freedoms to the Roman Catholic Church and to believers.
Much has been accomplished since then, the pope said, but much needs to be done. He urged his listeners to redouble their efforts to recruit new priests and nuns.
Church-state relations began improving markedly after John Paul’s visit. Christmas was reinstated as a permanent holiday and outdoor religious processions, common before Cuba’s 1959 revolution, were again allowed.
Cuba was officially atheist from the early 1960s until 1992, and religious believers were banned from the Communist Party, the military and several professions. Believers were granted permission to join the party after the 1991 collapse of Cuba’s Soviet bloc allies.
