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Why did he attack the church early in his regime? Because, he answers, it harbored counterrevolutionaries. He insists that Cuba never tortured or murdered priests and did not close a single church. Church-state relations have improved somewhat in recent years, and Castro even fancies that it is time for Pope John Paul II ("a noteworthy politician") to visit Cuba. Of this newfound cordiality, one Western diplomat in Havana observes, "Castro can afford to be magnanimous; religion today in Cuba is hardly a threat." In fact, Catholicism was never deeply rooted in the country. Today there are perhaps 80,000 active Catholics in a nation of some 10 million; about 41% of the population is counted as nominal Catholics, compared with 90% before the revolution. There are only 215 priests, one-fourth the pre-Castro figure.
Friar Betto is a sympathetic, perhaps even credulous, interviewer. The author told TIME that nothing Castro says in the book "qualifies him as a heretic." | The friar also regards Cuba as "far more just" than most of the world's nations because it supposedly has eliminated poverty. He explains that he did not press Castro about such sensitive subjects as discrimination against religious believers in government hiring and in universities because "I didn't want to interrupt him with questions that would put him on the defensive."
Castro himself, however, admits that discrimination against religious believers is "something we haven't yet overcome," although he maintains it is not government policy. He says that freedom of religion "is an inalienable right of the individual," but, because of past tensions, he still supports the exclusion of Christians from Communist Party membership, which effectively prevents them from holding important government posts. What does the Vatican make of Castro's friendship campaign? "So far we have only words," says one official. "We want to see acts."