MIAMI — As the days draw down before Mariana O’Naghten sees Pope Benedict XVI in Cuba, she heads to the chapel of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in South Miami for a daily hour of prayer.
“I’m preparing myself spiritually,” said O’Naghten, a Dame of the Order of Malta, one of the Catholic Church’s oldest lay religious orders. “There is a tendency to see this trip through political eyes, but I see it as something spiritual. I’m traveling to support the church in Cuba.”
O’Naghten is one of more than 800 people expected to participate in a pilgrimage organized by the Archdiocese of Miami. The pope will arrive in Cuba for a three-day visit on Monday.
Some 320 pilgrims have purchased a special package that will take them to Santiago, where the pope will deliver the homily during a twilight Mass before flying on to Havana for a Mass celebrated in the cathedral by Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, a tour of religious sites and the finale — Benedict’s Mass on Wednesday morning in the Plaza de la Revolucion.
Nearly 500 other people are expected to fly to Havana on charter flights and join the archdiocese group there, said church officials. And still others are making solo travel plans to coincide with the pope’s visit.
Those traveling to Santiago with the archdiocese must report to Miami International Airport at 4 a.m. Monday. They’ve been told they need to be clear of the airport by 9 a.m. and en route to the city so they won’t interfere with security preparations for the 2 p.m. arrival of Benedict’s plane, as well as a flight carrying Cuban leader Raul Castro and other Cuban officials from Havana.
The Cuban government has turned down “three or four’” visa requests from potential pilgrims and their slots were taken by others, according to the archdiocese.
A handful of visa requests are still pending and some members of the media who had hoped to travel with the group didn’t receive visas, either.
This week Airline Brokers, a Coral Gables, Fla., charter company that is handling travel arrangements for the pilgrimage, buzzed with activity. Cartons of bottled water printed with Benedict’s image were waiting to be loaded aboard the charter flights and stretchy rubber wristlets that read “La Caridad Nos Une (Charity unites us) Marzo 26-29 2012” were ready for the pilgrims.
The prices vary but a single traveler in an “A grade” hotel will be paying $2,103 for the four-day, three-night package, which includes airfare.
Benedict’s visit coincides with the 400th anniversary year of the discovery of a small wooden statute of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre floating in the Bay of Nipe. In 1916, this representation of the Virgin Mary became Cuba’s patron saint and is now venerated at a shrine in the town of El Cobre outside Santiago.
For some of the pilgrims, the trip to Cuba will be a profoundly spiritual journey; others admit curiosity is mixed with their religious motivations. Some are hoping Benedict will speak in defense of human rights
Religion, Pages 12 on 03/24/2012