U.S. OKs Group’s Cuba Trip for Papal Mass

WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration on Friday eased slightly its restrictions on travel to Cuba, authorizing Roman Catholics to charter a cruise ship to the Communist-ruled island when Pope John Paul II visits there in January.

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin announced the decision to permit about 1,000 pilgrims to make the trip--on a vessel provided by the Archdiocese of Miami--to attend a Mass on the final day of the pope’s planned five-day visit.

“The United States government views the pope’s visit as a potentially important event in bringing to the Cuban people a message of hope and the need for respect of human rights,” Rubin said.

Although Friday’s announcement covered only the Miami archdiocese plans, Rubin hinted that Americans may also be permitted to travel to the island by other means during the papal visit. He did not elaborate.

President Clinton last year tightened restrictions on travel from the United States to Cuba, banning charter flights and other direct transportation. Scheduled airline service from the U.S. to Cuba has been prohibited for most of the nearly four decades that Fidel Castro has ruled the island.

The restrictions are designed primarily to deny Cuba the money that tourists would bring. Visits are not expressly forbidden, but Americans are prohibited from spending money in Cuba without a license from the Treasury Department.

Rubin said the pilgrims will be subject to the spending restrictions. A spokesman for the Miami archdiocese said the visitors will sleep and eat aboard the ship.

The pope’s decision to visit Cuba, a country that remains overwhelmingly Catholic despite Castro’s promotion of the atheism of Communist ideology, presented Clinton with a political dilemma. The politically potent Cuban exile community opposed the pope’s visit and urged the administration to do nothing to support it. But many U.S. Catholics made clear their desire to attend the papal Mass.

The administration attempted to balance the political pressures by permitting Catholics to attend but under tightly controlled conditions.

The Miami archdiocese said the ship will arrive in Havana harbor Jan. 24, a day before the papal Mass. It will return to Miami shortly after the service.

A spokesman said the archdiocese also has asked permission to send fax machines, telephone equipment and other supplies to the Cuban Catholic Church for use during the papal visit. The administration has not yet decided if that request will be granted.

The anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation said U.S. residents should not be allowed to travel to Cuba. Ninoska Perez, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said Clinton’s decision “sends the wrong message to the Cuban people and the Cuban government because all we have seen is an increase in repression.”