JUAN O. TAMAYO

 Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, putting aside the combative tone of recent
 statements by Catholic priests on the island, has issued a pastoral letter calling
 for forgiveness and reconciliation.

 ``Changes in the political or social fields are not needed as a prior condition for
 this action, Ortega said in the 25-page letter he issued Monday, adding that ``only
 forgiveness heals the wounds.

 Ortega's message contrasted sharply with two recent outbursts by priests in
 Cuba demanding significant political and social changes and attacking the
 government of President Fidel Castro as repressive.

 Priests in eastern Oriente province wrote a ``study text in July accusing the
 government of repressing all dissent and complaining of the church hierarchy's
 ``passivity in the face of a ``totalitarian system.

 STRONG WORDS

 And last month the Rev. Jorge Palma said in a strongly worded homily during a
 Mass in Oriente's El Cobre shrine that Cubans should ``put aside their fears of the
 government and speak out in favor of freedom.

 Ortega, in contrast, made almost no mention of politics in his first pastoral letter
 in years, titled ``One God, Father of All, and focused on a dramatic call to
 reconciliation among all Cubans on the eve of the new millennium.

 ``We must close the wounds, he wrote, adding that ``forgiveness is a first-rank
 requirement for a dialogue within society.

 In his only clearly political allusion, he urged Cubans to have no fear using the
 name of God in public despite ``the period of militant atheism that two generations
 of Christians lived through in Cuba.

 Castro's government was officially atheist from the 1960s to the early 1990s,
 when it switched to ``secular.

 WARNING ON BIAS

 Ortega also cautioned against racial discrimination, ``which has tended to
 increase in recent times, and repeated his condemnations of abortion, widespread
 in Cuba because of shortages of birth control methods.

 He indirectly criticized the U.S. embargo on Cuba, using the government
 terminology ``blockade, and spoke of actions ``that left a painful aftermath in
 many hearts -- among them terror attacks against the government and assaults
 by pro-Castro mobs on dissidents.

 Ortega made a special point of noting the problems in Cuba's prison system,
 saying it had a ``relatively high population and adding that he would like someday
 to celebrate a Mass in a prison. He said few prisoners have access to chaplains,
 and said he hoped the government might decree an amnesty for inmates who are
 older, ailing or have good records. He made no mention of Cuba's political
 prisoners.

 Ortega lamented the lack of hope among Cuba's youth, saying he was especially
 hurt by the desire of some to leave the island, and obliquely called for reforms to
 the inefficient, state-controlled agriculture system.

 ``Cuba's lands are capable of feeding its people much better, he said.

 This report was supplemented by Herald wire services.

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald