wfn.org | NCC Statement on Cuba Trip

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact:  NCC at 212-870-2227
Internet:  news@ncccusa.org

NOTE THAT the NCCCUSA delegation will meet 
with news media again on Tuesday, June2, in 
the V.I.P. Room, Terminal One, Jose Marti 
International Airport, Havana, Cuba, to 
report following their conversations with 
Cuban governmental officials, expected 
later today - Monday, June 1.

Statement Delivered by the Rev. Dr. Joan Campbell
General Secretary of the 
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.    
at a News Conference with hosts
Cuban Council of Churches
1 June 1998
Havana, Cuba

We would like to begin by thanking our hosts, the Cuban 
Council of Churches, whose churches, some of which are more 
than 100 years old, are deeply rooted in Cuban society.

By way of background, the NCCCUSA's 34 member denominations 
include 52 million Protestant and Orthodox Christians in the 
U.S.  Leaders of two of our largest member denominations - the 
United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. - 
are in our group, and a third, from the African Methodist 
Episcopal Church, is scheduled to arrive this afternoon.

The Cuban Council of Churches - which just celebrated its 57th 
anniversary - and the NCCCUSA are "sister" councils with a 
relationship that extends back to before the 1959 Revolution.

Several of us in this delegation have made repeated trips to 
Cuba over the past 25 to 30 years.  We are excited about the 
increasing space that the Cuban churches have for the conduct 
of their own life and for their service to society.  We are 
witnesses to a booming of faith in Cuba, especially during 
these past three to four years.  Protestants now constitute 
more than 50 percent of the Christian worshipping community.  
According to the Cuban Council of Churches Studies Center, 
300,000 Protestants worship regularly in Cuba, and 280,000 
Roman Catholics.  

The three congregations in which we worshipped yesterday - 
Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian - report a phenomenal 
growth.  Pastor Raul Suarez at the Ebenezer Baptist Church 
told us that he had 20 persons in worship in 1990, now he has 
300, and there are more than 20 trained facilitators of groups 
that meet regularly in each others' homes for Bible study and 
prayer.  Sunday mornings, Bible study groups for all ages - 
including for persons preparing for baptism - occupy virtually 
every corner of the church, classrooms, courtyard and offices.  
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian 
Church USA, who preached Sunday at the Presbyterian Church in 
Havana, commented that the Presbyterian Church in Cuba is 
among the fastest growing Presbyterian churches in the world.  
And, we learned, the membership of the Methodist Church in 
Cuba has tripled its membership in the past five years.

The churches' service to the community also is growing 
rapidly.  For example, there now are denominational and 
ecumenical programs of care for the lonely elderly, for 
construction of housing for the community at large whatever 
their religion, and so forth.

The growth and strength of the Protestant churches in Cuba 
today is an untold story that we encourage you, the media, to 
tell.  However, in the words of one of the church leaders with 
whom we met yesterday, we are not na‹ve concerning the 
intensity of discrimination, and, for a time, persecution, 
that Cuban Christians have endured during the past several 
decades.

We have heard from our Protestant colleagues how the Pope's 
visit has benefited all Christians.  Religious language has 
found greatly expanded space in the public discourse.  We 
appreciate greatly the Pope's ecumenical spirit, the fact that 
he met with 30 Protestant church leaders while he was here, 
and his welcome of all Christians to his public events.

We have had several intense conversations during these there 
days with the Cuban Council of Churches Executive Board, and 
with heads of CCC member denominations,  about how we as a 
sister ecumenical council and as sister denominations can help 
further strengthen the role of the churches in Cuba.  In the 
meetings that we expect to have later today with Cuban 
governmental authorities, we plan to express our appreciation 
for the opening of the past years and to urge that the church 
be granted even more space for witness and service to the 
society.

Among things we have heard during our visit that concern us 
are reports that some groups from outside Cuba, including from 
Latin America and from the United States, are trying to 
destablize and divide Cuba's historic, ecumenical 
denominations.  For example, we were told that some 
missionaries have been coming from outside Cuba, offering 
indigenous pastors and missionaries money, clothing and shoes 
in exchange for their loyalty.

We in the NCCCUSA intend to join with CCC in an indepth study 
of such intrusions that are threatening the well-being and 
reputation of the historic churches of Cuba.

We would like to conclude with a word about our visit to the 
Antonio Guiteras Holmes Polyclinic in Old Havana on Saturday.  
One of the ways that we as the NCCCUSA participate as partners 
with the CCC is in the area of humanitarian assistance.  Over 
42 shipments of food, medicine, medical equipment, school 
supplies and other goods valued at $10 million have been 
distributed by the CCC.  When several of us were here last 
December, we visited the polyclinic and were advised of its 
needs.  We promised to help, and on Saturday we delivered that 
help.

Our assistance to this polyclinic represents a new phase in 
our assistance, continuing more general assistance and now 
also targeting specific clinics and hospitals to help equip 
them for their work.  We are working with the CCC to identify 
a second hospital for such assistance.

The details are in the news release, but let us tell you a 
story or two from our time at the clinic.  The clinic 
director, Dr. Marta Salgado, told us that the clinic was down 
to its last 8 pairs of surgical gloves, which they were doing 
their best to hold together with tape.  Every time we visit, 
we are impressed with the skill, commitment and compassion of 
the doctors and nurses, who do so much with their specially 
tuned clinical diagnostic skills and with the few medicines 
they can get, including natural medicines, despite a lack of 
equipment and medicines.  Our contributions simply help them 
do the job they are trained to do and want to be able to do.  
Our shipment includes boxes and boxes of surgical gloves.  We 
were moved to observe the joy of the doctors and nurses as 
they inspected the shipment of seven pallettes of equipment 
and supplies donated through Church World Service, the 
humanitarian assistance ministry of the NCCCUSA, to the CCC.  
One pediatrician unpacked tiny oxygen masks and other 
equipment especially for use with children, and with tears in 
her eyes, kept repeating, For the children!  For the children!  
Tragically, Dr. Salgado told us that a baby who was brought 
into the polyclinic last week died of asthma.  The baby could 
have been saved with the breathing equipment that arrived in 
this shipment.  

We are relieved that the U.S. has authorized the resumption of 
direct aid flights and are pressing hard that those flights 
actually be resumed as soon as possible.  In December, we 
promised to redouble our pressure on the U.S. government to 
end the embargo, a pressure we have sustained over many years.  
We long for the normalization of relations between the U.S. 
and Cuban governments.
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