Description

Hospital de San Lázaro, Rincón, Cuba, 12 December 1997. The pilgrimage, a potent demonstration of the fusion of Afro-Cuban Santeria with the Catholic Church, is dedicated to St Lazarus to whom the faithful make offerings and sacrifices as tokens of their gratitude. In the early days of Castro's communism, Santeria was favoured by the government as a political counterweight to Catholicism. Men, women and children come barefooted, some crawling on their knees, or wearing clothes made of jute sack, or even carrying members of their families for many miles, as they make their way to the church inside the grounds of the hospital for leprosy. No wonder when Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, and expressed his wish to have “an encounter with pain,” the place he chose was Rincón, the lazaretto in Havana that is home to the most serious cases of leprosy, and where every 17th December tears, flowers, candles, and many other offerings bear witness to the pilgrims' faith.