HAVANA - A Roman Catholic bishop said Wednesday that people living in Canada pressured nearly two dozen young Cubans to stay behind in Toronto after Pope John Paul II's visit there last month.
"Never before has a church delegation been wrapped up in something similar," said Bishop Carlos Baladron, president of the youth commission of Cuba's Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"From our first days in Canada, there were notable pressures by some people living there ... exhorting the Cubans not to return to their country," Baladron said in a statement sent to international news organizations.
Of 200 people who traveled to Canada with the Cuban church delegation, 23 stayed behind, the bishop said. Baladron, a Vatican-recognized prelate from Cuba's eastern province of Guantanamo, headed the delegation.
The bishop said several dozen young people from other countries also stayed behind in Canada after the World Youth Day encounter with the pope in Toronto.
Baladron said news coverage of the Cubans' defection "indicates that a religious event such as this ... can be taken advantage of by those with determined political interests."
The Cuban delegation left for Canada on July 18 and returned Aug. 2. It was the first time that Fidel Castro's government had authorized such a large group to travel abroad for a Roman Catholic gathering.
Organized religion is widely tolerated in communist Cuba, where several members of the National Assembly are religious believers, including a Baptist minister.
More than a decade ago, Cuba's constitution was amended to change the country from an atheist to a secular state, and religious believers were allowed for the first time to join the Communist Party.
Religious services and celebrations are regularly held undisturbed inside churches and other recognized houses of worship, although outdoor celebrations such as religious processions still require special government approval.
Baladron said last week that Roman Catholics on the island do not face repression for their religious beliefs, despite the defections in Canada.
"In order to do something like this (desert), you say things ... that aren't true," said Baladron. "We haven't had any religious persecution, neither there (in Canada) nor here."
Cuba's Catholic Church has, however, been fighting for a greater voice in the island's government-controlled society, especially since the pope visited in early 1998.
In recent years, the church has pushed without success for the right to open parochial schools and to have regular access to the news media, which here is controlled by the government.
An official of John Paul's World Youth Day in Toronto last week also expressed disappointment that 23 Cubans used the event as an opportunity to seek asylum.
"It is very unfortunate. It's not the reason why we put on World Youth Day," Paul Kilbertus, the event's communications director, said at the time. "They came for other reasons and they took advantage."