The Concept of Poverty in Cuba According to the Catholic Church

Abstract

In 1986, the Catholic Church in Cuba published a Final Document that consolidated the conceptual foundations of a five-year reflection on its role within the revolutionary process that began with the triumph of 1959. This paper aims to analyze the epistemological construction of the concept of "the poor" within the Cuban socialist context, from a religious perspective. The 1986 Cuban National Ecclesial Meeting established the groundwork for a genuine dialogue between two seemingly antagonistic philosophical positions: Catholicism and Revolution. As recognized in the Final Document, these ideologies shared common ground. Poverty, viewed as both a spiritual and existential category deeply embedded in the people, emerged as one of the significant challenges for socialist Cuban society. Cuban political fundamentalism simplified the national discourse into a binary framework and constructed a triumphant narrative that emphasized the eradication of material poverty as a major achievement. However, structural poverty was quietly deepening in Cuba, leading to a crisis that exploded after 1989, with repercussions that remain to be fully explored. To better grasp these enduring interpretive challenges, this paper reveals the perspectives Cuban Catholicism offers on the concept of the poor.