海角大神

At Cuba's first major rock-n-roll concert Friday night, the Rolling Stones played to an estimated 500,000 Cubans, many of whom were lifelong fans.

Some of these Cubans once聽 to pirated vinyls when the Communist government banned such music.

"To me, this is a consecration," Juan Carlos Leon, age 57, told Reuters. "I've waited my whole life for this. The Stones are the greatest."

One major institution in Cuba expressed reticence about the performance, however. The 聽directly and asked them not to play on Good Friday, suggesting a midnight start time instead, Britain's Mirror newspaper reported. The Rolling Stones appreciated the the personal letter but respectfully replied that other global events were occurring on the holy day.

The Catholic Church is certainly not asking Cuba to continue its isolationist policies 鈥� Pope Francis hosted Cuban and US officials last year to pave the way for a historic visit by President Obama this week 鈥� but it does want to maintain its influence within the island nation.

"I think we鈥檒l see continuity on the church's role in human rights, and also its important charity work as well," says聽R. Andrew Chesnut, the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and scholar of Latin American history.

Unless the regime's politics begin to change more substantively than Raul Castro has indicated thus far, the church's political role will remain significant.聽

鈥淥utside the government, the [Roman Catholic]聽,鈥� Javier Figueroa, a retired Cuban history professor at the University of Puerto Rico, told the Atlantic.聽

While the Communist government's repression severely weakened its influence, Catholic leaders in Cuba gradually created a space for the church inside the once-"atheist" country by offering social and economic services the government desperately needed and moderating its politics, Jason Berry wrote for the Atlantic.

Initially banned by Fidel Castro, the Catholic Church became one of the few institutions to聽gain a foothold in the Communist state聽after the Soviet Union fell in 1989, wrote Whitney Eulich for 海角大神.聽From its position as the gateway to needed social services, the Catholic Church could lobby the government from within. It was a strategy church leadership preferred over open hostility to the Communist revolution, which had resulted in the government closing religious schools, exiling priests, and banning Catholic literature.

Now that its multi-lateral strategy for moving Cuba back into the world circle is bearing fruit in the form of a US presidential visit and rock gigs, the Catholic Church may shift its tactics and perhaps its focus. It is a shift for which聽outspoken Catholic dissidents have been calling for years.

The Ladies in White, a mostly Catholic women's group that has protested since 2003 on behalf of political prisoners聽were arrested for protests about聽the pope's Cuba visit in September. Although Catholic leaders had helped them pressure the government to free many political prisoners, the Ladies in White and others like them criticized the church for a too-close relationship with a repressive government.聽

"I wouldn't be surprised if the leadership, particularly Cardinal Ortega, doesn't become a bit bolder," Dr. Chesnut says.

Such difficulties are nothing new for the Catholic Church in Latin America, as Catholic leaders 鈥� including Argentine Pope Francis 鈥� are accustomed to spending a little time on the wrong side of the region's ever-shifting regimes and revolutions. The church's bigger challenge is to rebuild its former strength 鈥� only 8 to 9 percent of Cubans are practicing Catholics 鈥� in time to stop Cuba from going the same route as much of Latin America, where Catholic strongholds are聽losing membership to enthusiastic evangelism from other 海角大神s and rising secularity.

"I predict that that鈥檚 the reason we have our first Latin American pope is to stop that hemorrhaging," Chesnut says.聽"I think when we actually do see political opening and liberalization [in Cuba], it actually won鈥檛 bode well for the Catholic Church because it will be competition."