Cuban-American family differs on politics but unites on helping the Cuban people

Cuban-American family differs on politics but unites on helping the
Cuban people
Idea to help La Merced church had genesis during Pope Benedict's visit
South Florida family says it wants to directly help Cuban people
They will meet the families they've aided during papal visit
BY MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com

Like many Cuban-American families in South Florida, Andy Gomez and his
relatives are all over the lot when it comes to Cuba. Gomez, his wife
Frances and two of their in-laws are heading to Cuba as pilgrims during
Pope Francis' visit, but other extended family members vow they will
never set foot in Cuba as long as there is a Castro in power.

Still, the whole extended family — 15 people in all — have managed to
come together around a common theme: helping the Cuban people. The
family, including the second generation, is helping support two programs
at the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Merced, a Catholic shrine in
Havana dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy.

It was Gomez's idea to get the whole family behind adopting the church
in Old Havana. They help finance an after-school program that teaches
children about God, the Church and human values in a fun way and
provides snacks as well as a new project that brings counseling to kids
who face school and home life challenges in the poor neighborhood
surrounding the imposing Baroque church.

No one in the family is a fan of the Castro government, but they all say
helping the church programs is their way of reaching out directly to the
Cuban people. "We strongly believe we made a mistake putting the Cuban
people together with the Castros. They are not at fault, and we cannot
blame them for what has happened," said Gomez. "More people should be
doing this type of thing."

On Saturday, the day Pope Francis arrives in Cuba, Gomez, his wife, and
Tony and Virginia Rivas, the in-laws of the Gomezes' eldest daughter,
will line the streets of Havana with tens of thousands of Cubans as
Francis passes en route to the Apostolic Nunciatura. Then they'll head
to La Merced to meet with some of the people helped by the church's
programs, which also include elder daycare and breakfast for children.

The idea to help started to come together after Gomez, a retired
assistant provost and dean of international studies at the University of
Miami, struck up a conversation with a group of seminarians at the papal
Mass in Santiago, Cuba, during the 2012 visit of Pope Benedict. Some of
them were studying at the seminary next to La Merced and Gomez stayed in
touch. "They started to talk to me about the needs of the church," he said.

It was one of those seminarians who put him in touch with Father Gilbert
Walker, the rector at La Merced who belongs to the Vincentians
missionary order founded by St. Vincent de Paul.

Gomez, who was a longtime senior fellow at UM's Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies, presented the idea of helping La Merced at a
family gathering last December. Not everyone was instantly sold on the idea.

"I had a little bit of mixed feelings. My parents were forced to leave;
they lost their living. I wanted to make sure it was a worthy cause,"
said Jeannie Smith, whose paternal grandfather was a large landowner.

According to family lore, the farm where her parents lived in Camaguey
was taken over and used as the headquarters of Huber Matos, a
revolutionary who became a political prisoner after expressing dismay at
the Marxist turn of the revolution. He was sentenced to 20 years for
treason and sedition.

Smith wavered until she met Walker during a trip he made to Miami. "I
had a wonderful impression," she said. "What I see with this priest is a
man who is nurturing values in the minds of young Cubans. Cubans have
been programmed, programmed, programmed. The value system is gone. It
won't happen overnight, but if the church begins with children, there is
hope for the future."

Recently the extended family got together at the Gomezes' Coral Gables
condo to enjoy a meal of slow-cooked pork, fried platanos, boniato, rice
and a Cuban-American concoction, flake — a combination of chocolate flan
and chocolate cake, to discuss Cuba, the pope's visit and why they want
to help La Merced.

"I want the best for the Cuban people. When I send money to help kids,
I'm not helping the government. I'm making their lives better," said
Tony Rivas, who was 14 when he arrived in Homestead aboard a stolen crop
duster with 13 other people in 1968.

Even though Rivas, a businessman, jokes that "if I talk to my sons about
Cuba, I may as well be talking about Mars," the younger generation also
is helping with the La Merced project.

Gomez's youngest daughter, Kristi Gomez Smith, is holding a children's
clothing drive for La Merced kids at habit, her Coral Gables boutique,
and her older sister Frances Marie, a teacher, and others have collected
school supplies that the family will take to La Merced.

But Jeannie and José Smith, of Coral Gables, say they have no interest
in going back to Cuba while the Castros are still in power. "I will
never go back as long as there is communism," she said. José Smith feels
so strongly about it that he hopes the next president will cut off
diplomatic relations with Cuba. However, other members of the extended
family support the rapprochement.

Rivas said that although he hates communism, he's in favor or renewing
ties with Cuba. "Nothing has happened in 54 years," he said, "so let's
try something different. It can't get any worse." He will be making his
second trip back to Cuba since the crop duster incident. His first trip
was when he rented a boat and went to claim his brother Alex during the
1980 Mariel boatlift.

His wife Virginia hasn't been to Cuba since 1980 when she went alone to
meet her husband's parents and introduce them to her 1-year-old son. She
is looking forward to Francis' visit but said many in her family don't
think she should go. "I am going as a pilgrim; I am not a tourist," she
said.

Alex Rivas and his wife Ana, who live in Kendall, aren't going on the
pilgrimage and they don't want to return to Cuba until the Castros are
gone either. But Ana said, "When Andy told us about [the La Merced
project], we thought the cause was wonderful."

"Even though we're family, we have differences of opinion, but we all
want to help Father Gilbert," said Gomez, who will be making his third
trip to Cuba since leaving in 1961.

Frances Gomez will be making her first trip back to the island since she
left at age 4 in September 1961. She admits to being a little nervous.

A relative of hers, the late Santiago Archbishop Enrique Pérez Serantes,
indirectly had a role in making the day the bearded rebels marched
triumphantly into Havana on Jan. 1, 1959 possible. When Fidel Castro,
Raúl Castro and their fellow revolutionaries failed in their assault on
the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, Pérez Serantes is credited with
intervening and having the brothers sent to the city jail in exchange
for having Batista forces searching for the rebels end repression
against the city's residents. Most likely that action spared the
Castros' lives because most of the rebels held at the Moncada Barracks
were shot, Gomez said.

"As a true Christian, he had to do what he had to do," said Frances
Gomez, who is the great grand niece of Pérez Serantes.

Walker said he's delighted by the extended Gomez family's involvement
with La Merced, which was dedicated in 1886 and is one of the most
popular churches in Havana because it attracts adherents of both
Catholicism and Afro-Cuba religions. "The church is open to everyone. We
welcome everyone," said Walker.

Having international support for the church's programs is "certainly new
for us," said Walker, an American priest from the Gulf Coast who has
been in Cuba for 12 years.

"We have always been about reconciliation and building bridges," he
said. "This is certainly building bridges between people here and Andy's
family."

Source: Cuban-American family differs on politics but unites on helping
the Cuban people | Miami Herald -
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