Cuban exiles in U.S. not optimistic about change in Cuba's leadership

Published: 2008-03-03

MIAMI (CNS) -- Pardon the yawn, but that is how Cubans in Florida reacted to the news of Fidel Castro's resignation as president of Cuba. "It's a different dog with the same fleas," said Msgr. Pedro Luis Perez, pastor of San Lazaro Parish in Hialeah. Castro's resignation was posted on the Web site of Granma, Cuba's official newspaper, at dawn Feb. 19. On Feb. 24, Cuba's national assembly elected Fidel's younger brother, 76-year-old Raul, as president. Raul Castro had been running the country since his brother ceded power to him 19 months ago, after announcing he would be undergoing intestinal surgery. "I would have been surprised if they had told me that Fidel Castro had gone on an Ignatian retreat, seven days without speaking," added Msgr. Perez, who was among a group of priests -- including Miami's retired Auxiliary Bishop Agustin A. Roman -- who were expelled from the island in 1961. "That would be surprising." The change at the top "doesn't make any difference to me and even less to the people of Cuba," agreed Rosario Bergouignan, a notary in the Miami Archdiocese's metropolitan tribunal, who visited Cuba in January on a humanitarian mission. Father Fernando Heria, pastor of St. Brendan Parish in Miami's Westchester neighborhood, said, "Cuba's political climate will always affect the church," and the recent transfer of power is bound to have a "ripple effect on the working relations" between the government and the church. But Father Heria, who left Cuba as a teenager but returned for the papal visit and other religious events since 1998, said he believes that a "transition" in the Cuban government began many years ago. "It has been a slow 'brewing' process, but it is there nonetheless," Father Heria said.

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