This is a transcript of Archbishop Andrew Hutchison’s webcast – April 20, 2005

Once again welcome to Conversations With the Primate.

As I am taping this segment of the web cast we’re still in Eastertide, in fact it’s Monday just after Low Sunday. And that means that we have just received the news over the weekend of the death of Pope John Paul II. So along with my Easter greetings to you I bring the sincere sympathies of the Anglican Church in Canada to all our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters on the loss of a truly great Christian leader of our time. As you will know, Pope John Paul II had a particular interest in Canada visited here no less that three times. He will be sincerely missed and our prayers are very much with the Roman Catholic Church as the cardinals gather in conclave over the next few weeks to decide on a new leader for the church.

Today I’d like to speak to you about our involvement with the Church in Cuba. The largest part of our national budget and a great deal of our national interest is the Partners In Mission Program. Our partnership are with Christians and particularly Anglicans all over the world. Among those partnerships one that is very important to us is our relationship with Cuba. Canon Philip Wadham is responsible for our contact with that region and most recently he and I and Sam Carriere, our director of Communications and Information Resources visited Cuba for their annual synod. What makes our relationship with Cuba particularly important is that following the revolution, Cuba, which had been attached to Episcopal Church of the United States, had to break that relationship and that left them as an extra provincial diocese. That is a diocese that is not part of any other national province. And to remedy that a small committee was pulled together called the Metropolitan Council of Cuba, comprised of a representative, a bishop representing the Episcopal Church of the United States, the Archbishop of the West Indies, and the Primate of Canada who presides as chairman of that council. The council provides a support group as it were for the Bishop of Cuba and becomes its connection with the worldwide Anglican Communion. So each year during February it’s my obligation to visit Cuba and certainly not a bad time to be there. And the purpose of that visit is first of all for the metro political council to meet along with the diocesan bishop and then to attend in observer status the synod. This being my first visit to Cuba I was invited by the Bishop to preach for the opining liturgy of the Synod. Cuba of course is a Spanish speaking country and that is not one of my languages so it was a challenge to write a sermon in English, have it translated into Cuban Spanish and then to deliver that in as convincing a way as possible. Quite an experience and one certainly that I enjoyed thoroughly.

The Bishop of Cuba at the moment is also the Bishop of Uruguay. Miguel Tamayo was the Bishop of Uruguay and because Cuba was not ready to elect its own fulltime bishop it called upon the metro political council to appoint one and fortunately Bishop Tamayo accepted that appointment. He serves the diocese on a half-time basis spending half his time in Cuba and half his time in Uruguay. His background is Cuban and he is a splendid bishop exercising wonderful leadership in the church in that country.

In addition to attending the Synod we also visited the seminary in Matanzas. The seminary being very important to us in that Canada supports students at the seminary through bursaries, and also supports a full time member of staff. We met with the staff, we had lunch at the seminary and then I had the opportunity to meet with 12 Anglican students. And what a great treat that was. We then visited the Canadian Embassy, always a courtesy when I am on an international visit. But also in this case to assist somewhat in the mobility of Cubans visiting Canada, visiting our church in Canada and Canadians visiting in Cuba. We were very well received there. We also had a courtesy visit with the Cardinal Archbishop of Cuba, Roman Catholic being the dominant Christian denomination on the island. And we had the privilege of meeting with a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Cuba responsible for religious affairs.

I’d like to tell you about a particularly important moment in the synod. It may be difficult for us to imagine in Canada just how important we are to the Cuban church. I brought with me two motions from our General Synod in St. Catharines. The first one calling upon the Canadian government to maintain a separate policy in its relations to Cuba from that of the United States. And the other asking us to use our influence to bring about negotiations to normalize those relationships. Bishop Tamayo in his charge to the synod read those two motions and on the reading of those motions there was a standing ovation from the synod. In fact I have with me here copies in Spanish of the two resolutions passed by the synod in profound appreciation for that stand. When we pass a motion in the General Synod I suppose that goes by relatively unnoticed by many of the members of synod but it carries enormous weight and importance in Cuba and I think you should know that.

The synod itself was held in the cathedral and somewhat unlike some other synods that I have attended very often when you attend a synod in a foreign land you find that the liturgy is extremely familiar. Well I am happy to say that in Cuba Anglicanism has been thoroughly acculturated and the music and the life in that liturgy was truly a treat for us to experience. The other thing that is significant about that synod is the dominance of younger people. Young men and young women are tremendously active in the life of their church. And I think that probably another very important matter is that it is one of the few occasions when Cubans have the right to vote in a way that makes a difference. So the voting procedures are taken extremely seriously in the life of the synod.

The President of Cuba, Fidel Castro is an aging leader and there begins to be concern about what the succession might mean for them. The Cuban economy at the moment is decimated. Having lost their Russian partners there are very few international partners and Cubans on the whole are very poor. At the same time they are very resourceful people. And some things in the country work very well. They have a state of the art medical system. They have free education right through university years and a literacy rate higher than that of Canada but they do have enormous problems in housing and in transportation and one worries about the future. It’s a very secure place to visit and safety is not an issue anywhere on the island and very warm and welcoming people.

Our partnership with Cuba is one of the more significant international partnerships that we have and I look forward to its development in the years ahead.

Sam Carriere tells me that very shortly a poster will be arriving in your parish that advertises Conversations With the Primate and shows you easy access on how to get in touch with us. Once again I encourage you to respond. This is a conversation and I look forward to hearing from you. 

There are many partnerships between individual parishes and dioceses and parts of the church in Cuba and I would encourage you to do what you can to nourish and encourage those relationships as well.

Thanks very much for being a part of this segment of Conversations with the Primate. I look forward to being with you again.

God bless you.