The Magazine   Jan 19, 1998, Vol. 3, No. 18 • By GEORGE WEIGEL
Widget tooltip Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts
IT IS TEMPTING TO THINK OF John Paul II's impending visit to
Cuba as a reprise of his epic journey to Poland in 1979. But we
should resist the temptation. The Catholic church in Cuba is not
thinking that way, and neither is the pope.  For John Paul, this
visit, like the 80 others he has undertaken over the past two
decades, is first and foremost a pilgrimage. His goal, quite
simply, is to strengthen the church in Cuba for whatever future
it faces. The pope's impact on world affairs has been such that
his every move on the international stage is interpreted as some
kind of political gambit. But he is the first to insist that
whatever influence he has enjoyed has been the result of his
preaching of the Gospel and his Gospel-based defense of human
rights. It is perhaps a curiosity that this most politically
potent of popes conceives his ministry in explicitly evangelical
terms; but tha