HAVANA -- (AP) -- Cuba's Roman Catholic bishops said Monday they are saddened that many of the island's families are separated by divorce and exile and called for family unity this holiday season.

 In their annual Christmas message, the Conference of Catholic Bishops also remembered the Cuban families affected by Hurricane Michelle, which tore across the island in early November.

 ``There are so many families divided, separated by divorce,'' the message said. ``It is a minority of children and adolescents who can sit down with mama and papa on the night of the 24th, Christmas Eve, to eat Christmas dinner.''

 The bishops said they hoped Cuban children would learn the true meaning of Christmas, ``which is not just a day off from work or school, but a feast day, the feast of the birth of Jesus.''

 The message was distributed to the media Monday and will be read in Roman Catholic churches during Mass on Sunday.

 Cuba's communist government declared Christmas an official holiday once again in 1998, fulfilling a request by Pope John Paul II, who made a historic visit to the island in January of that year.

 For many years under Fidel Castro's government, Dec. 25 was just another day on the calendar.

 Cuba was officially atheist from the early 1960s until 1992, and religious believers were banned from the party, the military and several professions.

 Since the collapse of Cuba's Soviet bloc allies, however, officials have softened their approach toward organized religion. Catholics and other believers in 1991 were granted permission to join the Communist Party.

 In recent years, Cubans have especially embraced the secular trimmings of Christmas, usually by placing small artificial holiday trees with blinking lights in their living
 rooms as early as late November.

 But most of the commercialism of Christmas so common in much of the world is unknown here, where advertising is rare and families do not have the money to buy
 expensive presents.

 Cubans celebrate Christmas simply with a family meal on Dec. 24th and the few devout believers attend a midnight Mass.

 The most important holiday in Cuba is still the night of Dec. 31, celebrated both as New Year's Eve and the eve of the triumph of the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power.

 The bishops also took note of families with relatives who left the country. ``For not a few this will be the first year that a brother, a daughter, a grandchild, a husband or a mother are absent.

 ``For many others, this is an old experience that they have never grown used to,'' the bishops added.

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