CWS presses State Department on travel restrictions to Cuba

November 12, 2007

Representatives from Christian denominations and ecumenical organizations meet earlier this year with Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) who introduced a bill in the House to end the ban on travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens.

Photo: Rangel Office

Restrictions on travel to Cuba imposed on national and regional U.S. religious institutions undermine the health and strength of thousands of individual Cuban congregations, Church World Service’s John McCullough told a government official last month.

The CWS Executive Director and CEO met with Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, to urge the U.S. Government restore freedom to travel to Cuba for religious purposes.

In the spring of 2005 the U.S. government began placing new restrictions on religious travel to Cuba. Each national and regional church institution is now limited to only four trips to Cuba per year. Several national denominations have not been able to acquire even these limited licenses.

Oddly, individual local U.S. congregations continue to receive the less restrictive licenses, which used to be available to regional and national church bodies as well.

Church World Service and several of its member denominations have been working together to have these restrictions removed. CWS staff and denominational mission executives have met on numerous occasions with members of Congress and Administration officials urging that their less restrictive pre-2005 licenses be restored.

In the October meeting, Secretary Shannon explained that U.S. policy was focused on supporting individual congregations in Cuba as, in his view, the most independent of Cuban church bodies. The implication was that the U.S. policy of only granting the less restrictive licenses to individual local U.S. congregations seeks to further this policy.

Rev. McCullough responded that as a result of the restrictions, Cuban congregations no longer receive adequate moral support and fellowship from their U.S. counterpart denominations. Indeed, national U.S. denominations do more to provide such nurture than local U.S. congregations are able to do.

Secretary Shannon also expressed concern that U.S. dollars becoming available to Cuba resulting through U.S. travelers in Cuba were helping the government of Fidel Castro. But Rev. McCullough argued that the benefits of increased religious exchange would far outweigh the relatively small increases in U.S. dollars available to Cuba from spending by U.S. religious travelers.

The U.S. State Department considers the Cuban Council of Churches “an agency of the Cuban government.” Rev. McCullough expressed his conviction that the U.S. churches and religious institutions are better equipped than the U.S. government to discern and select who will be their ecclesiastical and ecumenical partners. Such partnership—and the ability to actively pursue them—is properly a religious, not a political, matter.

Church World Service will continue to meet with members of Congress and the Administration to seek full restoration of ecumenical and denominational licenses to travel to Cuba.

Also attending the meeting with Secretary Shannon were CWS Emergency Response Program Director Donna Derr, CWS Education & Advocacy Associate Director Martin Shupack and Elsa Falkenburger of the Washington Office on Latin America.

Act Now: Contact your Senators and Congressional Representative, and ask them to end the travel ban to Cuba.