Cuba
POPULATION 11,263,000
ROMAN CATHOLIC 47 percent
PROTESTANT 4 percent
SANTERÍA (AFRO-CUBAN RELIGIONS) 2 percent
JEWISH 0.01 percent
NO STATED RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION 46.99 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
Cuba is the largest island in the Greater Antilles, an island range in the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised of the main island and the Isle of Youth. The capital city is Havana (La Habana).
When the European navigator Christopher Columbus encountered the island of Cuba in 1492 C.E., it was populated by the Siboney and Taino peoples, whose religious traditions have been virtually eliminated. Columbus claimed the island for Spain, and in subsequent waves of immigration Europeans, Africans, and Asians would take their religious heritages to Cuba. The British introduced Protestantism to Cuba in 1762, when they briefly occupied Havana.
While Roman Catholicism has always been statistically the majority religion of Cuba, African religious traditions—taken to the island by West African slaves—remain part of the lifeblood of the nation's religious practices. The Catholic Church banned Afro-Cuban religious practices, generically called Santería, but since the days of slavery many Cubans (primarily the poor) have disguised traditional African religious practice with an overlay of Catholic practices, notably the veneration of saints and the Virgin Mary.
Religious Tolerance
Religious tolerance is a rather new conception in Cuba's history.
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