Cuba: Catholic believers, few practitioners
Le Monde.fr | By Mathilde Damgé
The visit of Pope Francis, this weekend in Cuba, is the 3rd in 17 years of a pope on the island, after that of Benedict XVI in 2012 and John Paul II in 1998.
The normalization of relations between the Vatican and the communist island allowed the Catholics present in numbers in Cuba to obtain more rights after decades of frenzied atheism - 130 priests were expelled from the island after Castro's revolution 1959. Other religious such as the current head of the Cuban church Jaime Ortega were sent to labor camps while the Church was expropriated many goods.
With John Paul II, relations have calmed and Christmas Day is back holiday.
Catholics account for more than half the population, according to figures from Vatican 6.7 million people, or 60% of the population. But these are few Catholics to attend churches.
image: http://s2.lemde.fr/image/2015/09/19/534x0/4763709_6_a9be_2015-09-17-0cb3ec8-19055-1c1t6lf_2d2bc0a3890c050e5794a51c26d77234.png
According to Orlando Marquez, spokesman for the archdiocese, 60% of Cubans are baptized, but less than 5% are practitioners. Other bring this figure to 1%.
And if 90% of Cubans are believers, the syncretic Afro-Cuban cults (mixtures between Christianity and African traditions) dominate.
Concerning the "cover" of Cuban territory by pastoral teams (priests and lay people attending a parish), there were 837 Catholics in pastoral charge against 144 in the US in 2013. The number of Catholics per priest is 18 562 1753 in Cuba against the United States.
According to a survey conducted in March among Cubans for the Washington Post, 44% of Cubans interviewed declare themselves non-religious, 27% are Catholic and 13% claim to worship as a syncretic Santeria, a faith born in the Caribbean.
image: http://s1.lemde.fr/image/2015/09/19/534x0/4763708_6_d2c2_2015-09-17-afb83c4-19055-1jdvp4c_4b599516fd2eff07f38842e19a8ac535.png
In short ▪ Datavisualisation ▪ Background ▪ Nanographix ▪ Audit ▪ Decoders
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