HAVANA — It would have been impossible a short while ago.

Thirty leaders of the Church from across the North American continent stood up in the center of one of the last bastions of communism and said, “Dear brothers and sisters of America: In communion with Pope John Paul II, we want to share with you our strong experience of episcopal fraternity lived here in Havana and ask you to unite your lives to serve Jesus Christ.”

With these words, five cardinals and 25 bishops from the United States, Canada, and Latin America summed up the groundbreaking meeting they held in a country known for its regime's antagonism to the faith and persecution of Catholics.

The Feb. 14-17 meeting was more than just 27th Inter-American Meeting of Catholic Bishops. It was a meeting that revealed a new future for the Church in Cuba — and throughout the American continent. It was made possible by Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba last year and given added significance by his recent visit to Mexico City and St. Louis, where he issued a concluding exhortation from the 1997 synod for America.

The bishops' joint message echoed Ecclesia in America, emphasizing the new evangelization and “a united and reconciled America, sign of Christian hope for the world.”

The Inter-American meetings take place every one or two years, bringing together representatives from the bishops' conferences of the United States, Canada, and Latin America to discuss common issues related to the Catholic Church on both sides of the Rio Grande.

The president of the U.S. bishops' conference said the meeting in Cuba showed how “the world has not forgotten” the Cuban people, suffering “the horrible impact” of the U.S. trade embargo.

“The Cuban bishops tell us that it's very important the meeting is being held in Havana. … It's a sign that the Church in the American continent continues in solidarity with the Cuban church,” said the president, Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston.

The first Inter-American meetings in the 1970s focused on practical issues such as the financing of the pastoral projects and the pastoral attention of the Latino immigrants in North America. But since 1992, when the Pope officially announced his interest in holding a synod for America, the Inter-American meeting gained momentum and grew in significance.

A ‘New Discovery’ of America

The recent meetings in Havana set a landmark in the relationship among the bishops, they said.

“It is a beginning of a new stage in the relationship of Catholics in North and Latin America,” said Archbishop Estanislao Karlic, president of the Argentinean Bishops' Conference. “In one way, it is the ‘new discovery’ of America.”

Archbishop Luis Morales Reyes agreed. “This has been the most spiritually intense and at the same time productive meeting of its kind,” said the president of the Mexican Conference of Bishops. The meeting was special “because it took place in Cuba and right after the Pope's visit to America.”

The meeting, which would have been almost unnoticed in any other country, was an unprecedented event in Cuba. The large number of cardinals and bishops attracted so much attention from Catholic Cubans, that the event was “officially opened” twice on Sunday, Feb. 14: once, with a Mass presided over by Lucas Cardinal Moreira Neves, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation of Bishops at the National Marian Shrine of Our Lady of El Cobre; and then with another at Havana's Catholic cathedral, headed by Jaime Cardinal Ortega y Alamino.

During the Mass at the cathedral, Cardinal Ortega said that the Pope's post-synodal exhortation Ecclesia in America, presented last month, “has shown us that the new evangelization is our primary task, and that it has to become a revolution of love.”

“Maybe that is why so many ideologies, and even some so-called liberating theologies have failed, because they lacked the power of love,” the cardinal said.

The meeting's agenda, according to Fr. Jose Felix Perez Riera, secretary of the Cuban episcopate, was divided in two main points: to evaluate the situation of the Church in Cuba a year after the Pope's visit and to search for new ways of Inter-American cooperation after Ecclesia in America. At a practical level, the bishops decided that from now on, the two North American bishops' conferences and Latin America's joint conference, CELAM, will create a “collegiate commission,” which will coordinate the relationship on a permanent basis. The new commission, which will work on creating common pastoral initiatives, will be formally created at the end of May, after the elections that will choose a new presidency for CELAM.

The commission will be formed by two members for each one of the North American bishops' conferences and three representatives of CELAM; plus the secretary-generals of both episcopates and CELAM.

There is also a symbolic change. From now on, the Inter-American Meeting of Bishops will officially become Meeting of the Bishops of the Church in America.

Concern for Cuba

The meeting, nevertheless, was certainly dominated by the Cuban situation. Only the morning of Monday, Feb. 15, was officially programmed for discussing the Cuban situation, yet the theme remained a priority throughout the gatherings. In fact, that same evening, all cardinals and bishops visited different parishes to experience the contrast between the growing, lively spiritual life of Catholic parishioners and their crumbling church structures.

Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, a Dominican, was deeply moved by visiting the Dominican parish of Havana. “This is a lively Catholic community which needs more room and possibilities to grow and which deserves the full support of the fellow churches in America,” he said.

The cardinal's view was a common one. No wonder the bishops' final document said: “From Havana, we greet all our fellow bishops of America and our beloved communities, united to the Holy Father, whose visit to Cuba we are commemorating.

“Together with him, we want give our cooperation to create the conditions that will help Cuba to open to the world and the world to open to Cuba.”

The U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops has promised “more significant support” for the Church in Cuba, while the Mexican Bishops' Conference has already donated thousands of Bibles and catechisms.

Chilean bishops have pledged a special collection for Cuba, while the Argentinean Bishops' Conference is ready to send more priests and religious to work in Cuba, if the Cuban government allows their presence.

At the end of the meeting, Cuban President Fidel Castro invited all the bishops to a dinner, and spent 15 minutes in private with Cardinal Moreira Neves.

Archbishop Morales said, “There is a common concern and continentwide effort to assist our Cuban brothers and sisters as we start out on the road to a deeper and more fruitful integration between Catholics in North and Latin America.

“In this way, we put in practice the Pope's desire for one united Church in America.”

The Holy Father had pointed out, in Ecclesia in America, “Even though structures for dialogue between Conferences already exist, the [Americas] Synod Fathers underlined the benefit of inter-American gatherings, such as those sponsored by the Episcopal Conferences of various American countries, as an expression of practical solidarity and a chance to study common challenges to evangelization in America.”

He added, “It would be helpful to specify more exactly the nature of these meetings, so that they may become a better expression of communion among all Bishops. Beyond these more inclusive meetings, it could be useful, whenever circumstances require it, to establish special commissions to explore more deeply issues which concern America as a whole. Areas in which it seems especially necessary ‘to strengthen cooperation are the sharing of information on pastoral matters, missionary collaboration, education, immigration and ecumenism’” (No. 37).

Archbishop Morales also said he believes that this commitment is a way to put in practice one line of the bishops' final document: “We want to respond generously to our Lord Jesus Christ by proclaiming the Gospel to our people. We feel particularly called to promote reconciliation among our brothers and sisters, overcoming the conflicts and tensions that have created divisions between our peoples.”

Alejandro Bermudez writes from Lima, Peru.