On January 1, 1959, Batista fled Cuba. In response to a call by Fidel Castro, hundreds of thousands of Cubans launched an insurrectionary general strike that ensured the victory of the revolution. Fidel arrived triumphantly in Havana on January 8 as commander-in-chief of Cuba’s victorious Rebel Army. On February 13, 1959, he was named prime minister, a position he held until December 1976, when he became the president of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers.
He has been first secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party since its founding in 1965.
Frei Betto is a Brazilian priest, born in Belo Horizonte in 1944. He became active at a very young age in the Catholic Student Youth and was imprisoned by the military dictatorship in 1964, when he was a journalism student. The following year he entered the Dominican order. Along with his studies of philosophy and theology, he worked as a journalist and in the movement opposing Brazil’s military regime.
Frei Betto worked with the internationally renowned Brazilian educator, Paolo Freire, who enabled peasants to quickly learn to read by providing materials about politics, power, and liberation.
Imprisoned again in 1969, on his release in 1974 he became involved with organizing Christian base communities in poor and industrial neighborhoods. During the 1980s he worked in Nicaragua, Cuba, China, the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, advising on issues of religion and the state. He has also been prominent in the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and at the World Social Forums in Porto Alegre. More recently he has been an adviser to the Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva government in Brazil on social policy and the Zero Hunger project.
Frei Betto is a member of the International Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians and is widely acclaimed as author of over a dozen books on liberation theology.
To Leonardo Boff: priest, doctor, and above all, prophet.
To the memory of Friar Mateus Rocha, who taught me the liberating dimension of Christian faith, and as provincial of the Brazilian Dominicans, stimulated this mission.
To all Latin American Christians, who, amid lack of understanding and in the blessedness of the thirst for justice, are preparing, in the manner of John the Baptist, for the coming of the Lord in socialism.
INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION
FREI BETTO
It is amazing that 20 years after the launching of the Spanish edition of Fidel and Religion in November 1985 it should remain so timely. The lead up to this book involved a series of unexpected events and coincidences. It had never occurred to me that I would have the privilege of listening to the comandante [Fidel Castro] in a long interview, though I had begun my professional career as a journalist — an activity in which I am still involved, as it is entirely compatible with my pastoral work as a Dominican friar.
I was very grateful when, after a conversation in Havana in February 1985 that lasted from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., Fidel agreed to give me a brief interview. The Cuban leader usually works at night, and in addition to being an excellent speaker, participates in discussions with tremendous enthusiasm. He never meets with an interviewer for just 10 or 15 minutes. Generally, he spends hours talking — preferably, those just before dawn — because he’s interested in hearing everything his visitor has to say. With a mind open to all topics, he asked me for details about the cooking in the monasteries, the friars’ library, the system of studies and methods of preaching the gospel. Or he would ask about the economy, climate, political forces and history of the visitor’s country. He also took the opportunity to talk about the Cuban revolution — its achievements, mistakes, limitations, and advances — never falling into leftist clichés or quoting the Marxist classics.
At that time, I wanted to write a small book about Cuba, including my interview with Fidel as an epilogue. I had been told that the comandante didn’t give many interviews (he receives hundreds of requests for interviews every month) and that, in particular, he didn’t like to talk about his private life. Even so, something caught my attention in our talk that early morning in the home of Chomi Miyar, his private secretary: Fidel recalled his Catholic training — both in his family and at the La Salle Brothers’ and Marist Brothers’ schools — with enthusiasm and a touch of nostalgia. I, too, had studied at a Marist Brothers’ school. Would he be willing to repeat what he’d said in the conversation during an interview? He said he would and suggested that I return to Cuba three months later.
SECULAR GOVERNMENTS AND PARTIES
At first, I was drawn to Cuba for ideological reasons. I was 14 at the time of the triumph of the revolution. One year earlier, I had begun to take part in leftist student politics. Our opposition to the United States was affirmed when the bearded fighters from the Sierra Maestra mountains entered Havana in triumph.
Then came the war in Vietnam and the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964–85), which was sponsored by the CIA. A victim of state repression, I was arrested and spent two weeks in prison in 1964 and another four years in prison starting in 1969, thanks to my student militancy and to my support for those whom the dictatorship persecuted for political reasons. Those experiences increased my sympathy for the Cuban people’s heroic resistance and my opposition to US policy in Latin America.
During the military dictatorship, Brazilians weren’t allowed to talk about Cuba. I remember that one time when I was in prison, I was sent a collection of books. On checking the list, I saw that one was missing: Cubism. When I asked for it, I was told that the prison’s censor had sent it back to my family, because I wasn’t allowed to have works about Cuba…
In 1979, the presence of Christians in the Sandinista revolution led me to visit Nicaragua. There, at writer and Vice-President Sergio Ramírez’s home, Lula — now president of Brazil — and I met Fidel Castro on July 19, 1980. We spent the whole night talking, and I saw that the comandante was surprised to hear me speak of liberation theology. I asked him why the Cuban government and Communist Party were confessional, and he reacted strongly to the description: “What do you mean, ‘confessional’?” I replied, “They are confessional because atheists are officially recognized. The confessional character of an institution is based not only on affirming the existence of God, but also on denying it. The secular nature of governments and political parties is one of the achievements of modern times.”
After the launching of the Spanish edition of Fidel and Religion, the Cuban government modified the constitution, and the communist leaders changed the party statutes, making them secular, which opened the doors of the Cuban Communist Party to those who professed religious faith. I asked Dr. Carneado, who was in charge of relations between the Cuban government and the religious denominations at the time, if the opening had brought many Christians into the party. He told me that the most surprising result was the discovery that many members of the Communist Party had retained their faith — now, they were able to admit it publicly without running the risk of being excluded from the ranks of the party.
FRICTION BETWEEN THE STATE AND CHURCH
In 1981, Fidel invited me to advise the Cuban government in its rapprochement with the Catholic church. Strongly influenced by Spanish Catholicism — the religious branch of General Franco’s dictatorship — the Catholic church in Cuba in those pre-Vatican II days wasn’t able to see the revolution in an unbiased way. As a result, it let itself be manipulated by the US government, which opposed the new Cuban regime when it realized that, after overthrowing the dictator Fulgencio Batista, the revolutionaries