Pope & N.Y.C. group sure to see new Cuba

In a few days, Auxiliary Bishop Octavio Cisneros of the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, and 25 other New Yorkers, will witness a truly historic event: Benedict XVI, the second Pope to visit Cuba, will cap a three-day trip to the island with an open-air Mass in Havana’s imposing Plaza de la Revolución on Wednesday.

“It is Cardinal Dolan’s wish that we go to Cuba in solidarity with the Holy Father and with the Cuban people,” said the Rev. Lorenzo Ato, a New York priest born in Peru, who is in charge of logistics for the trip and will be part of the New York delegation. “Bishop Cisneros, who was born in Cuba, will represent Cardinal Dolan and will head the New York group.”

Many more Americans (more than 800 just from Miami), the majority of them born in Cuba, will put aside old grievances and ideological differences and travel to the island to participate in this momentous event.

On Monday, President Raúl Castro will welcome the Pope in Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second city, where the pontiff will celebrate his first Mass. On Tuesday, they will hold an official meeting.

Then, Benedict goes to the Sanctuary of Cuba’s patron, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, home of the sacred image that was found floating in the sea, to mark the 400th anniversary of her discovery, one of the reasons for his visit.

The Pope arrives in Cuba after his three-day visit to Mexico. On Wednesday, he returns to Rome after celebrating Mass.

Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, visited Cuba in 1998, invited by then-president Fidel Castro. It was a pioneering trip to bolster the Cuban church and improve its contentious relations with the government.

On that occasion, as the final act of his five-day visit to Cuba, John Paul celebrated the first Mass ever at the Plaza de la Revolución, a grand square surround- ed by government buildings and a 400-foot-high monument to José Martí, hero of Cuba’s war of independence.

I was lucky enough to have been there covering the pontiff’s visit for the Daily News on that Sunday in January, when thousands of Cubans stood under a bright sun in front of a dove-shaped white altar.

That morning, the Plaza de la Revolución, the symbolic heart of the Cuban Revolution, where hundreds of thousands of people had massed countless times to hear Fidel Castro’s fiery speeches, was a surreal sight.

Fourteen years have gone by, and Benedict will find a much different Cuba from the one where John Paul said goodbye with a ringing condemnation of the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

The embargo is still in place, and U.S. policy toward Cuba, despite some minor adjustments, hasn’t fundamentally changed, but the ongoing transformations in Cuba have been remarkable.

To begin with, the revolution’s historic leader, Fidel Castro, stepped down in 2008 and his brother Raúl has been substituted as Cuba’s president.

In the last four years, the younger Castro has launched cautious economic reforms encouraging individual initiative and private businesses, expanded freedom of religion and expression, and welcomed the very public role of the Catholic church in the liberation of 115 political prisoners last year and as mediator with some disaffected groups.

“The Pope’s visit should consolidate the social role of religious communities as active participants in the gestation of a new Cuban economic and social model,” said Arturo López-levy, a Cuban-american expert on the island nation and International Studies lecturer at the University of Denver.

Without a doubt, Benedict will find a Cuba much different than the one his predecessor made a pioneering visit to 14 years ago.