By MARC LACEY
EL COBRE, Cuba — The most bizarre offering that the Rev. Jorge Alejandro has witnessed at Cuba’s most cherished shrine came from the man who bent down and began clipping his toenails. One by one, the man deposited them at the altar, among the many other mementos left by the faithful for the Virgin of El Cobre, widely considered the mother and protector of Cubans.
The Rev. Jorge Alejandro blessed the family of Overlandis Cobas Utria, center, at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity del Cobre.
Grateful for the assistance of the Virgin of El Cobre, Cuban athletes have left Olympic medals and other offerings at the church.
The church is less than 15 miles from Santiago de Cuba.
At this shrine in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra, Cubans leave the Virgin locks of hair, baby clothes, baseballs, diplomas, letters, candles and bouquets. They offer snapshots, trinkets, lockets and pendants as well.
Some have even left banners criticizing Cuba’s Socialist government, which might be unthinkable anywhere else on the island.
Lina Ruz, the late mother of Fidel and Raúl Castro, visited the Virgin in the late 1950s when her sons were fighting to topple the American-backed government of Fulgencio Batista. She left a metal figurine that is now kept under lock and key.
Ernest Hemingway donated the medallion from his 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature to the shrine. It was pilfered in 1986, but the police recovered it days later. The Virgin makes an appearance in Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”; the fisherman at the center of the story pledged to visit the shrine if only he managed to catch his elusive fish.
In the case of the man trimming his nails, Father Alejandro, a priest at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity del Cobre, felt compelled to intervene, explaining that the man’s idea was noble but unnecessary.
“We humans relate to the body and to objects,” Father Alejandro said. “We like things to be concrete. But I try to explain that this is not a store where you give and then you get. It’s not important how beautiful the flowers are or how valuable the diamonds are that one leaves. What God wants is faith, and that’s the best offering you can give.”
It is not a message that sinks in easily. On a morning last week, a crowd of believers filed past him carrying offerings, known as ex votos, many of them sold by hawkers on the winding road leading up to the church.
Overlandis Cobas Utria brought flowers for the Virgin, whom he asked to help heal his infant daughter. The baby had a fever so high her forehead was hot to the touch. “The Virgin is everything for us,” he said, as his wife and mother-in-law nodded in agreement and his daughter let out a wail.
The shrine is packed with sports memorabilia left by Cuban athletes. There are signed baseballs thanking the Virgin for some clutch home run or essential out, as well as Olympic medals offered by athletes who believe their victory came about because of her intervention.
On this morning, offerings included pastry that a nun said was left by a follower of Santería, the Afro-Cuban religion that honors the Virgin — though not as a representation of the Virgin Mary, which is what Roman Catholics believe, but as Ochún, the goddess of love and femininity.
When Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, he did not make it to El Cobre. But from Santiago de Cuba, less than 15 miles away, he honored the Virgin, much to the delight of the local people.
In the years after the 1959 revolution, public processions venerating the Virgin of El Cobre were restricted by the government, which feared that any unsanctioned gathering could spin out of control. Only in the late 1990s were such displays allowed more regularly.
The Virgin, who was supposedly first spotted bobbing in the ocean off Cuba in 1611, has an undeniable political dimension. She has been adopted both by backers of the Castro brothers and by those who believe their rule has run the country into the ground.
Last week, several banners at the shrine called upon the government to release people jailed for speaking out against the leadership.
“Amnesty for Cuban Political Prisoners!” one said.
When Fidel Castro fell ill two years ago, his supporters from El Cobre, the area he has long represented in the National Assembly, visited the Virgin to ask for his recuperation. No doubt there were critics as well, quietly praying for change. Before Cubans flee the island on risky rafts, many come here to pray for a safe journey.
“People who are against the government bring their dreams and their suffering and their pain,” said Father Alejandro, an outspoken critic of the lack of freedom of expression in Cuba. “And those who support the government come here, too. The Virgin brings them together. She’s the mother of reconciliation.”
But she does not make them agree. Among the pilgrims who gathered at the shrine, opinions on the policies rolled out by Raúl Castro since February, when he officially took over the presidency from his older brother, ran the gamut.
Some credited Raúl Castro with keeping the country stable and being open to tweaking the system put in place by his brother. They pointed to his agricultural reforms, which will put unused arable land in the hands of private farms, as being a significant break with the policies of the past.
Others, including Father Alejandro, were unconvinced that the Virgin was guiding Mr. Castro to remake Cuba.
“What changes?” he asked. “Fundamentally, what has changed?” What Cuba needs, he argued, is room for political dissent outside the confines of the shrine.
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/americas/28cuba.html