In their book, His Holiness, Carl Bernstein and Marci Politi wrote of John Paul II's first visit to Poland after his papal election:

``The first day of John Paul II's triumphant return to his homeland on June 2, 1979, had left the Communist authorities in Warsaw and Moscow shaken. More than a million Poles had converged on the airport road, on Victory Square and in the Old City during the first hours of his visit. Students had taken up the crucifix as the symbol of resistance to the regime.

``Just as disturbing were the pope's words in private to First Secretary Edward Gierek. In the course of their meeting in the Belweder Palace, John Paul II had voiced his hopes for the kind of agreement between Church and state that Gierek himself badly wanted. But the pope had laid down a list of conditions designed to convince a Communist power that it would have to make unprecedented concessions if it was to coexist peacefully
with the Church.''

As subsequent history demonstrated, the Kremlin bosses and their puppets in Warsaw had every reason to worry.

But what many don't understand is that the papal visit did not come out of a vacuum. For 20 years, since the time of Pope John XXIII, the Vatican had worked to reduce tension between the church and Communist regimes. The policy, known as ``Ostpolitik,'' sought peaceful coexistence. In the case of Cuba, it was a policy that had not been popular with Cuban exiles and anti-Castro militants since the early 1960s.

John Paul's arrival in Warsaw marked a radical new development. As Bernstein wrote: ``Through him the Church was laying claim to a new role, no longer simply asking space for itself. Through him, it was demanding respect for human rights, as well as Christian values, respect for every man and woman, and for the autonomy of the individuals.''

Eighteen years later, Cuba prepares to receive John Paul II.

My first thought is, Which Cuba? There is the official governing regime. There is the Cuba of some 10 million men and women and children. There is the Cuba of half a million faithful Catholic believers. There is the Cuba of one million exiles, most of them practicing Catholics. There are the militant exiles who see Cuba's liberation coming through armed struggle. There are the Cuban news media in exile, whose anti-Castro rhetoric has kept alive the hopes of the exiles and, to a lesser extent, those of the people of Cuba.

With so many different ``Cubas,'' it comes as no surprise that there should be diverse opinions of John Paul II's visit.

I have been active in Cuban matters for some 37 years, and in the course of those years Cuba became for me almost a second homeland. Like so many others, I hope and pray for the day when Cuba will take its place in the family of free and democratic nations. I pray that this will come about peacefully and nonviolently, but I have no illusions about the difficulties involved and the difficulties that the people of Cuba will face in a post-Communist era.

Nonetheless, I believe that the papal visit will contribute to the eventual development of a free and democratic Cuba. However, I do not expect a sudden and miraculous change. That is not how divine providence works.

My reference to the papal visit to Poland was intended to emphasize that Cuba is not another Poland. In 1979, the Polish nation had an 800-year identification with the Catholic faith that held true through centuries of political conquest and persecution. Ninety percent of Poles were Catholic. The institutional church, despite 40 years of Nazi and Communist persecution, was one of the strongest in the world.

No one knew this better than John Paul and the Communist masters in Warsaw and the Kremlin. The pope was dealing from a position of strength. Yet in his public statements the Holy Father did not directly challenge the Communist regime. Indeed, two years later, with Poland under threat of Soviet invasion, the church urged Solidarity trade union leader Lech Walesa to ``fall back'' and to cancel a general strike. Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski urged Solidarity to begin a ``tactical withdrawal'' that would preserve its achievements and forestall military intervention.

But Pope John Paul knows that he will face a very different situation when he goes to Cuba in January. For 150 years, Cuba's institutional church has been extremely weak. In republican Cuba, baptized Catholics were about 80 percent of the population and about 10 percent had some other connection with the church. The rest had the faith but were unevangelized.

In October, Cuban writer Luis Fernandez Caubi, who recently died in Miami, wrote in Diario Las Americas: ``At the start of the Republic, the Church lived through a dark night. Molested for its links with the colonial regime, undermined by the American influence and criticized by positivism and free thought, the Church was reduced to an activity for women of the upper and middle classes. The men were superficially Catholic.'' For example, in the 1930s, many Cuban men were ashamed to receive Holy Communion publicly in church. They went to the sacristy after Mass to receive the Host privately from the priest.

It was only in the 1950s, with the founding of the Catholic Action movement, that a turnabout occurred. It was this active apostolate of the laity that set the stage for the confrontation with the Cuban Revolution in 1960-61. The Castro regime expelled Bishop Boza Masvidal, Bishop Agustin Roman, then a recently ordained priest, and some 120 other priests in September 1961.

Thus the church in Cuba became for 18 years the Church of Silence. By the mid-1970s, the church was baptizing only one Cuban child in a thousand; only one marriage in 5,000 took place in the church. The regime had succeeded in erasing from the very folk memory of the great masses of Cuban people any identification with the church.

I recall young people who came unaccompanied in the 1980 Mariel boatlift. They had no idea of the church, of Jesus Christ, of the Virgin of Charity. During Mariel I recall talking to one grandmother on the pier in Key West. She told me that she and her family were practicing Catholics. I pointed to the grandchildren and said, ``They are baptized.'' She answered: ``O no, Padre. Para no prejudicar su futuro. We did not have them baptized.'' Cuban parents did not teach their children about God so that their future would not be jeopardized.

In 1979, a new era was to begin for the church in Cuba. At a meeting of priests in El Cobre, Mons Azcarate, auxiliary bishop of Havana, called for the church in Cuba to engage in national reflection. It was the year of the pope's first visit to Poland. The two events were related. What arose in Cuba was Encuentro Nacional Eclesial Cubano. This began seven years of prayer, study and reflection. Today we see the fruits of this in a revitalized Cuban church that has made extraordinary progress.

However, it is still not the church of Poland, and Cuba is not another Poland. A document about preparations for the papal visit to Cuba, for instance, noted that ``most Cubans have only rudimentary ideas, as for example, who is Jesus Christ, and what do Christians believe and try to live.'' This, then, is the Cuba that Pope John Paul II will visit in January.

What can we expect?

It is perhaps easier to say what we should not expect. We should not expect one million people to turn out for the Papal Mass in Havana. After all, in Miami, fewer than 200,000 out of one million Catholics in South Florida attended the Papal Mass in 1987. One hundred thousand would be great. Fifty thousand will be more likely because of the lack of transportation, publicity and other difficulties.

For the small group of practicing Catholics in Cuba, the papal visit will be one of affirmation. That is why it's so important that there be present fellow believers from outside the island, and particularly from Miami. Indeed, the planned ship pilgrimage from Miami will be the most visible and concrete evidence of solidarity that we can show. It will be no surprise if it is the most photographed subject after John Paul himself.

It is sad that this visible symbol of solidarity should generate controversy in Miami and other centers of the exile community. It is sad that some really solid Catholics in the exile community do not agree with the view of the Archdiocese of Miami. We may agree on the essential values but differ in judgment when it comes to application of those values. But the church can and does, because of its mission received from Christ, claim a right sense of the values at stake.

One of the fundamental values of Catholic social teaching is solidarity. Therefore, the church in Miami is fulfilling its obligation ``to give to the minds and consciences of those engaged in the discussion the sense of the essential values which they should respect and pursue all through their concrete actions.'' At the same time, we recognize that people of goodwill can differ.

Some critics have suggested that the only value at stake in judging participation in the papal visit to Cuba is political. Yet Catholic social teaching on international morality clearly rejects the moralities of expedience. Its principles are based on the discernment of fundamental and universal value judgments that apply irrespective of the facts in a given situation.

Other critics have targeted the use of a cruise ship as the means of transportation and hotel for the pilgrims to Cuba. They have ignored statements that the casinos and night clubs will be closed. The church has for years sponsored conferences and spiritual retreats in Miami hotels. Just as we have been able to make these hotels centers of prayer and devotion for a few days, we can do the same on a cruise ship.

This will be a pilgrimage of faith to accompany the Messenger of Truth and Hope on his pastoral visit to Cuba. The Archdiocese of Miami is not only preaching what it believes; it is putting itself on the line in practicing what it preaches.