Santeria welcomes pope to Cuba with open arms

Dancing to the throbbing beat of sacred drums, the congregation circles a man lying face-down on the floor paying thanks to Babalu Aye, a deity in Cuba's Santeria religion.

The African-rooted faith has existed in awkward overlap with Catholicism in Cuba since it was a Spanish colony.

But on Saturday followers are casting aside their differences with their strictly Catholic neighbors to welcome Pope Francis to the island with open arms.

The man at the center of the ceremony for Babalu Aye is 51-year-old Marcelo Zulueta.

As 20-odd fellow worshippers dance and sing around his prone body in the living room of an old colonial house in central Havana, he raises his head, shakes a maraca and gives thanks before a small altar covered in offerings to the deity.

Zulueta, a Cuban who lives in Germany, is holding this ceremony to show his gratitude for regaining his health after an illness.

He made the trip back to Cuba because he wanted to be here for Pope Francis's visit, but also to renew his ties to his Santeria faith, he said.

"It was very important to me to unite my Afro-Cuban and Catholic roots. They're very closely connected in my case," he told AFP.

Around 70 percent of Cuba's 11 million people practice syncretism, the blending of traditional Christianity with African religions that arrived on the island with the slaves imported during colonial times.

Only about 10 percent describe themselves as Catholic, once the dominant faith.

The Santeria tradition has survived both the hostility of the Catholic clergy and the state atheism the communist government decreed for more than three decades after the Cuban Revolution.

Today, many followers say they plan to turn out to greet the pope during his four-day visit.

"As pope, Francis has brought the honey that was missing in our lives," said Juan Manuel Perez Andino, a "babalawo," or Santeria priest.

He said he has seen a subtle shift in the Church under the Argentine pontiff, even if the Vatican and the Cuban clergy still officially frown upon Santeria.

"Now the Church lets us go there with the 'iyawo' (new initiate) to perform the ceremonies we need to," he told AFP.

- Abstinence and animal sacrifice -

Santeria has its roots in the Yoruba people of modern-day Nigeria.
Its adherents worship "orishas," African divinities that have blurred over time with Cuba's most revered Catholic saints.

"I see them as being on the same level," said Zulueta. "I attach the same importance to Catholicism and Afro-Cuban religions."

The Virgin of Regla in Catholicism is Yemaya in Santeria, the goddess of the sea and fertility.

The Virgin of Charity, the patron saint of Cuba, is Ochun, the goddess of rivers.

Saint Lazarus is Babalu Aye, the protector of the sick.

Santeria's practitioners have traditionally been Cubans of African descent, but more and more whites are joining.

Novices must follow a strict one-year initiation ritual.

They must wear white from head to toe and observe a series of restrictions that include refraining from touching anyone under any circumstances, including sexual relations.
Worshippers keep altars at home devoted to their favorite divinities, and unlike Christians ask them for immediate intervention in their lives.

When faced with difficulties, they consult their initiation godfathers or godmothers, who prescribe rituals to perform.

Often they involve sacrificing a chicken, a dove or a young goat.

Each ritual is different, whether it is to win back a lost lover, find a job, regain good health or harm an enemy.

Such rites can now be practiced in the open -- a sea change from the years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, when he declared the island an atheist state and unleashed a crack-down on both Catholics and "Santeros."

Those were the days when "we had to hide our saints. If they caught you, they punished you and you could lose your job," said Perez, who heads the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba, an umbrella group for Afro-Cuban faiths.

But in 1992, Cuba abolished official atheism and amended its constitution to embrace the freedom of religion.

Today, discrimination on religious grounds is illegal.

"Why should we hide what we feel if it comes from our ancestors?" said Santeria practitioner Nancy Ferrer.

"This tradition is centuries old. No one can force it to stop."
Source: AFP