MEXICO CITY (AP) --- The Communist Party is ordering the only American Roman Catholic priest in Cuba to leave his provincial parish and eventually the country.

The party did not explain why the Rev. Patrick Sullivan has to leave the city of Santa Clara, about 185 miles east of Havana, local reporters told The Associated Press by telephone Sunday.

"It is not my desire to leave Santa Clara or Cuba,'' Sullivan told parishioners on an audio tape of his farewell Mass recorded by one of the reporters. "It is a unilateral decision of the Communist Party of Cuba.''

Although his visa expires in February, Sullivan said he planned to return to the United States soon to prevent any problems for the Cuban church.

There was no immediate response from the government or the party.

Sullivan, originally from New York and now in his 40s, has spent the last 17 years in Latin America, including war-ravaged El Salvador. He has worked since 1994 in Santa Clara.

During the Mass, Sullivan read a poem about resurrection by the late Cuban poet Dulce Maria Loynaz, those who attended the service said. Sullivan drew parallels between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection in recent years of Cuba's Catholic church.

The church appeared to undergo a renaissance in the months leading up to Pope John Paul II's historic visit to the island in January.

But enthusiasm appears to have waned since then; only several hundred showed up Saturday night for an Easter Eve vigil led by Cardinal Jaime Ortega in the plaza outside Havana's cathedral.