These mingle with the Catholicism imported by Spanish conquerors centuries ago..In December, the issue reached the country’s legislature, where lawmaker Alexis Lorente presented a formal call to improve funeral services.Lorente told AFP that authorities had since launched “a program to repair all the funeral vehicles, and to improve service in funeral homes and the wood used for the coffins”.As deacon at a Cuban cemetery, Miguel Pons has the difficult task of consoling the bereaved — and calming their anger when the coffins break.Except for the lucky few that have a family plot, bodies are buried in common graves, stacked up with strangers.Made of weak, green wood and lacking handles, the coffins are a poignant indication of how Cuba’s public funeral service has never recovered from decades of mistrust between the church and the communist government.In Cuba, funerals are provided exclusively, and practically free of charge, by the state.“When you exhume the person, you take them away in your box. They say, ‘Father, look at this!’” Pons said.Beyond the many historic colonial churches, African spiritual traditions of honouring the dead still survive. Then at last they have privacy,” said Pons.Families who come to bury their loved ones lament that the coffins lack nails or are draped in threadbare cloth, Pons said.The church’s fortunes improved and many Cubans started coming to the chapels again for funerals.

He was quoted by the state newspaper Granma as listing citizens’ numerous points of “dissatisfaction” with cremations, flowers, food at wakes and the shortage of hearses.“People complain to me.Under Carriage bolt communism, Cuba went through a period as an officially atheist country from 1976 until a constitutional reform changed it to a secular state in 1992. But with a lack of investment and decent coffin wood, it is a scrappy business.“I sometimes have to go out and hold the service in the street because the driver tells me, ‘Father, we can’t get the casket out.Sometimes, the glass window in the casket comes loose and drops onto the corpse.After two years, the decomposed remains are dug up and relatives are allowed to take away the bones, to keep them in an urn or store them in an ossuary. The corpse is very heavy and I’m afraid the bottom’s going to fall through,’” Pons said.But now the public system is showing the strain.Besides officiating the funeral services at his chapel in Havana’s picturesque Christopher Columbus graveyard, the 61-year-old often has to help shoulder the casket to stop it coming apart with the deceased inside. But what can we do ’”Burials are an important issue in Cuba, with its ageing population and religious sensibilities.

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