c. 1998 Religion News Service

HAVANA _ For most of his 64 years, Ibrain Barrallaso, descendant of African slaves, has proudly and openly practiced his religion.

Down a dark corridor and past a busy courtyard in this city’s oldest and most crowded quarter, in a drab room forming part of his modest home, Barrallaso has built a sacred altar to the past. Here, deities of Nigeria’s Yoruba tribe _ called “orishas” in Cuba _ are worshipped and honored, counseled and even feared. It’s a tradition as old _ and ingrained _ as anything on this island of 11 million people.

“In my house, we follow the customs and ways of our ancestors,” said Barrallaso, who for 18 years has been a “babalawo,” or high priest of Santeria, the most popular of Cuba’s widespread Afro-Cuban religions. “They say these ancestors of ours weren’t cultured, but the culture they lacked was Spanish culture. They had their own.”

Barrallaso and many other practitioners of Afro-Cuban religions have struck the same attitude toward the Catholic Church and the visit of Pope John Paul II to Havana.

Though most leaders of Afro-Cuban creeds and their followers welcome the pontiff’s visit, they are miffed Havana Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega has declined to allow them to meet the pope, as Christian and Jewish leaders will. They’re also resentful toward the church because Catholic leaders have, in the past, characterized their creeds as pagan and disposed to lowering “man to mediocrity.”

“The Afro-Cuban religions don’t have any problems with the Catholic religion. It’s the Catholic religion that has problems with us,” said Saul Fernandez, a “santero,” or leader, in Santeria. “Leaders of the Catholic faith have been making negative comments about our religion, which is absurd.”

The church’s position has created tension, said Natalia Bolivar, one of Cuba’s foremost experts on Afro-Caribbean religions, which range from Santeria to the Bantu tribes’ Palo Monte to the practices of the Abakua secret societies.

Bolivar said many Catholic clergy believe Catholicism and Santeria can complement each other. But much of the church hierarchy, she and others said, is blind to the pervasive nature of African-based creeds in Cuban society and their spreading popularity as religion in general undergoes a resurgence in a country whose government once stifled organized faith.

“The Catholic Church does not have a monopoly on God,” Bolivar said.

Most experts, from Bolivar to U.S. academics who study Afro-Caribbean faiths, agree that upward of 70 percent of Cubans practice such religions.

“The religion of the Cuban people is not one stringent faith. It can’t be labeled. It’s spontaneous. It believes in magic and spiritualism,” said Anibal Arguelles, a researcher and author at the Center for Socio-Religious Studies in Havana. “It’s a little bit of everything. It’s not just the religion that the Catholics have. … There are some religions that are more popular than others, but Cuba is not a Catholic country.”

Brought to Cuba by slaves captured in what is now Nigeria, Santeria was first practiced in secret. Adherents adopted Catholic saints to disguise their worship of African gods. The result was a fusion of two religions lasting to this day.

Thus, in Santeria, Ochun, the goddess of rivers, corresponds with Cuba’s patron, Our Lady of Charity; Chango, god of war and fire, is Saint Barbara; Yemaya, goddess of the sea, is the Virgin of Regla; Obatala, father of all deities, is Our Lady of Mercy.

With Santeria rites prescribed by a babalawo, practitioners seek out consultations _ to cure illnesses, to plot a new course, to look into the future.

Babalawos _ exclusively males _ and santeros maintain elaborate shrines in their homes where urns, figures of saints, pebbles, horsehair and other religious items are placed. Offerings, often food, are placed before the altars. Animals are sacrificed during rituals.

Because the religions focus on solving the problems of the present, religion experts and Santeria insiders say Cubans _ both black and white _ have flocked to Afro-Cuban faiths as their country’s economic troubles continue.

“It doesn’t preoccupy itself with people in the afterlife but life now and what you can do about it,” Arguelles said. “There are all kinds of difficulties in life that people have, and they go to this religion to resolve their problems.”

Barrallaso, the babalawo in Old Havana, said Santeria always has been strong in Cuba, even during the 1960s when the government was especially harsh toward organized religion. Now, though, he said Santeria seems to be flourishing.

“There used to be one babalawo here, another one over there. You had to travel to see them,” said Barrallaso. “Now they are everywhere, 50 here, 50 over there.”

There’s even a Yoruba Society of Cuba, which counts some 500 babalawos as members. Religion experts say there may be thousands more babalawos. In comparison, the Catholic Church has fewer than 300 priests in a country where 4.2 million people have been baptized Catholic.

Because of the interwoven nature of Catholicism and Santeria, many practitioners of African beliefs _ if not most _ continue to take part in Catholic rituals. Santeria followers say they insist on being baptized in a Catholic Church and many attend Mass.

It’s not unusual to see a santero _ wearing the colorful beads that represent Santeria’s deities and dressed in customary white _ praying in church.

“I’m a Santeria follower, but I’m also a Catholic,” said Luz de Lina Lafita, 69. “To be a santero, you have to go to church.”

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