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Visit closes the circle for former Cuban priest

By Wright Bryan
CNN Interactive writer

(CNN) -- Stepping onto the tarmac at Havana airport on January 20, 1998, George DuBreuil will have experienced the full circle of relations between the Catholic Church and Cuba's communist government.

It was in September 1961 that DuBreuil, then a Catholic priest in Camaguey province, was rounded up by Cuban security personnel and placed on a plane to Havana. Once in the Cuban capital, the startled DuBreuil was promptly moved from airport to dockside and deposited on a ship bound for Spain.

"This was the lowest ebb of relations between the church and government," DuBreuil said of the spasm in 1961 in which over 100 Catholic priests were expelled from Cuba by the young government of Fidel Castro.

More than 35 years later, DuBreuil, 66, is a public school administrator with a sideline as an active advocate for dialogue between the United States and Cuba. He left the priesthood in 1969 to get married, but remains close to the Catholic community.

Now he is about to return to Cuba to see Pope John Paul II symbolically rekindle the spiritual flame that the communist government worked to snuff out for more than three decades.

"I think it is going to be a historic occasion," DuBreuil said. "But I don't see a political role (for the church) in and of itself."

Instead of a direct challenge to the entrenched Castro regime, DuBreuil thinks the papal visit will open a new channel of communication with an island not accustomed to outside influences.

Opening new channels of communication with his homeland has been a preoccupation of DuBreuil's that has landed him on the national board of the Cuban Committee for Democracy (CCD).

The CCD believes that the fastest route to democratic change in Cuba is the open exchange of ideas between Cuba and the outside world, particularly the Cuban exile community. To that end, DuBreuil has been active in lobbying Congress and Cuban exiles in an attempt to change the prevailing hard-line, embargo-friendly attitudes.

Saying Mass with ... Castro?

When George DuBreuil stands in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion on Sunday, January 25, to celebrate Mass -- not only with the pope but quite possibly Fidel Castro as well -- he will witness the beginning of a new era in Cuban history, just as he did when the winds of revolution swept him away from the island.

The appearance of the pope in the heart of Havana, an event solicited by Fidel Castro himself, will signal to DuBreuil that Cuba does not have to be a closed society, and that change is possible.

Once the festivities surrounding the pope have died away, DuBreuil plans to visit with family and friends before returning to Maryland. This is when his work begins, spreading the word that Cubans elsewhere would rather engage the Castro regime than alienate it.

It is work he has been performing since his first return to Cuba in 1989. DuBreuil thinks he is making a difference because of moments like his return last year to his former parish, Our Lady of Charity.

DuBreuil was invited to speak in the very sanctuary from which he had been whisked away in 1961. The people greeted his return with a 5-minute standing ovation.

Now DuBreuil hopes that the changing climate will allow him the opportunity for regular trips back to his homeland, allow him to build bridges between Cubans and to minister to the people of Camaguey.

"My dream is to be able to spend a considerable amount of time in Cuba."

Follow the Pope's visit day-by-day:   Day 1  |  Day 2  |  Day 3  |  Day 4  |  Day 5

Icons at the Crossroads  |  Cuba and Catholicism  |  An Exile Returns
Testing the Embargo  |  Live Webcasts  |  The Struggling Revolution  |  Related links

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