Havana, Cuba - Top leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America gathered for the first time in Cuba on Tuesday, discussing the future of their faith in a globalized world against the backdrop of a closed Communist society.
The Latin American Bishops' Conference planned to elect a new president and meet with Cuban officials, although there were no specific plans to see Fidel Castro.
The 80-year-old leader has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery almost a year ago forced him to cede power to a provisional government headed by his younger brother.
At a news conference, Chilean Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, the outgoing conference president, ducked questions about how he would characterize the relationship between Havana and its Catholic Church. He said only that relationships between different governments and churches around the world occasionally are strained and that "we are immensely pleased when relations are good."
While most Cubans are nominally Roman Catholic, the country was officially atheist for years, until relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban government began to warm in the early 1990s.
Monsignor Carlos Aguiar, the conference's first vice president, said leaders are grappling with "where the Church needs to focus its energies to realize its mission."
"Globalization, not only economic but cultural, will redefine the church's mission," said Aguiar, a bishop from Texcoco, Mexico.
The government controls nearly all aspects of Cuba's economy and celebrates its opposition to globalization and the cultural influence of the United States. All radio and television stations are state-run and access to the internet is restricted.
The bishops decried abortion generally, but refused to speak specifically about it in Cuba, where the practice is free, legal and rates are high.
Many governments and human rights organizations around the world accuse Cuba of jailing government critics and limiting speech and press freedoms. Officials reject those charges, saying their communist system respects human rights more than most nations by offering a social safety net that includes free health care.
Asked about human rights, Bishop Andres Stanovnik, secretary-general of the conference, said officials "do not have a special or specific strategy for Cuba."
"It's the same strategy for all countries where we have a presence, to defend human rights, the right to liberty, the right to truth, the right to life," said Stanovnik, a bishop from Reconquista, Argentina.
Four days of closed-door meetings feature 68 cardinals, bishops and religious leaders from across Latin America and the Caribbean — and includes special invitees from Germany and the United States.
Cuba was a diocese of the U.S. church before breaking away in 1967. In the early 1990s, Cuba dropped all relations to atheism from its constitution and allowed religious believers of all faiths to join the Communist Party for the first time. Pope John Paul II became the first Roman Catholic pontiff to visit the island in 1998.