John Thomas and Sharon Watkins Sign Cuba Travel Policy Letter to Obama

As leaders of Christian denominations, their agencies, and ecumenical organizations in the United States, we write to express appreciation for your statements indicating a new willingness to review and revise long-standing U.S. policy toward Cuba. We have a long collective history of missionary and humanitarian activity in the nation of Cuba. Our partnership with churches, denominations, and ecumenical organizations there goes back many years, and transcends political ideologies.

Religious Leaders Call for Change in Cuba Travel Policy

Dear President-Elect Obama:

As leaders of Christian denominations, their agencies, and ecumenical organizations in the United States, we write to express appreciation for your statements indicating a new willingness to review and revise long-standing U.S. policy toward Cuba.  We have a long collective history of missionary and humanitarian activity in the nation of Cuba.  Our partnership with churches, denominations, and ecumenical organizations there goes back many years, and transcends political ideologies. 

We urgently request you to change the Cuba policy of the United States in ways that will assist the churches in their work and benefit all Americans.

Since 2005 U.S. church denominations, mission agencies and ecumenical organizations at the national and regional levels have suffered from severe restrictions on religious travel.  We write to ask you to lift these restrictions. Our institutions are currently eligible only for very limited licenses.  Some of our institutions have been unable to secure even these limited licenses.

These impractical restrictions have reduced our ability to send religious delegations to Cuba, limited our opportunities to accompany and support our Cuban church partners, and have the effect of severely limiting participation in Cuba missions by many U.S. churches and congregants.  In addition to lifting the restrictions on religious travel, we urge you to end the travel ban for all Americans.

We are also concerned that many Christian pastors and leaders in Cuba are unable to get visas for travel to the United States for church meetings and theological conferences. There appear to be a variety of factors at play in the denials, but one reason is the unduly negative view of the U.S. State Department toward leaders of the Cuban Council of Churches, which is the recognized ecumenical body of the traditional Cuban Protestant denominations.

We are convinced that it is time to change the ineffective and counter-productive U.S. policy toward Cuba and urge your Administration to take the following actions: 

• Freely allow religious travel to Cuba.
• Liberally grant visas for U.S. travel to Cuban pastors and other religious leaders, and no longer bar officials of the Cuban Council of Churches.
• Lift the travel ban for all Americans.

Beyond these immediate steps, we urge you to move to end the embargo on Cuba. We believe that the time has arrived to restore normal diplomatic relations with Cuba and to allow full engagement between the people of the United States and the people of Cuba.

For decades the U.S. policy toward Cuba has had unfortunate consequences for the Cuban people, while denying important freedoms to Americans.  It has failed significantly in its stated

objective to precipitate change in the Cuban government. The hostility between the two

governments has also limited relationships between Christians in the United States and those in Cuba, disrupting the close historical bonds between our churches.  Cuban churches are growing rapidly, presenting new opportunities for U.S. churches and ecumenical institutions in the United States to relate to and support their Cuban brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Thank you for recognizing and considering our concerns. We commit ourselves to pray for you, your family and your Administration.  And we wish you every success in your efforts toward a more just, compassionate and peaceful world for all people.

Sincerely,

cc: Senator/Secretary of State-Designate Hillary Rodham Clinton