Religion in Cuba's Socialist Transition

Abstract

This article attempts to synthesize the results of fairly extensive previous studies and pending assessments in order to present a more detailed look at religion in Cuba, especially in terms of the evolution of secularism. The effort to be brief has required many omissions, both descriptive and analytic. The reader, and only the reader, will judge whether my assessment is sufficiently comprehensive to advance our general understanding of the subject and to stimulate further inquiry. Preliminary considerationsWe must begin by clarifying our theoretical assumptions. First, the term religion encompasses a dual or even multifarious meaning: a spiritual communion via access to the supernatural, faith in the divine, devotion to the transcendent. Viewed on another level it refers to churches, denominations, sects, fellowships or other associative structures that have been adopted. These are not two separate realities, but rather the two dimensions of a single reality: the institutions and the faith of the believers. The interaction between the two gives substance to religion as a component of civil society and culture. I feel obliged to clarify this in order to avoid one of the most common methodological mistakes in addressing the issue of religious faith from a social science perspective.This distinction explains why there is not always a convergence of interests between a given church and its adherents. It also explains why the forces determining the place of religious institutions in the society do not necessarily correspond to those which make the believer a believer. When we disregard this distinction and think only in terms of churches, ignoring faith, our analysis becomes mechanistic.The second assumption I do not want to overlook is the inherent bias determined by whether the analysis comes from the point of view of a believer or a non-believer. This seems to be a truism, but it is not so

Haiti and Cuba: Trans-Caribbean Conversations and Cross Border Movement

“…As Cuba transitioned into Soviet style Marxism, "a single system of free secular public education" was created, and all religious schools were forcibly closed. 41 The declaration of an atheist Cuban state resulted in extreme discrimination against all religious adherents. This discrimination was formalized in 1975 and would remain institutionalized until 1992 when Cuba transitioned from state atheism to secularism.…”