FIDELES, NOT FIDEL:

The island has experienced a religious revival of sorts in the past 25 years, as the demise of Soviet totalitarianism has made room for a tropical Marxism that is less than total but still highly controlling.

Cuba was never a deeply pious country in the cloth of some other Latin American nations. But the Catholic Church and other denominations have come a long way from the 1960s and '70s, when Fidel Castro's revolution sent religious believers to labor camps and enshrined atheism in the constitution.

Today, Christmas and Good Friday are national holidays once more. Churchgoers no longer face official discrimination. For the first time in five decades, the government has given the church permission to build a cathedral. And Catholic authorities face increasing competition from fast-growing evangelical denominations, many with close ties to U.S. churches.

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