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The recent news that St. Lawrence Church of Tampa won permission from the Cuban government to start building the first new Catholic Church in Cuba since it embraced Communism in 1959 has many hoping for more religious freedom in the island nation.

But in a visit to Tampa this week, an outspoken religious leader who lives in Cuba advised people against getting their hopes up.

Cuba uses religion to further politics, said Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso, a Baptist pastor of Ebenezer Church in Taguayabon, Cuba.

The Cuban government, Lleonart Barroso said, forces religious leaders to propagate its own message that Communism works in the best interests of the people along with the word of God. Religious leaders who say otherwise risk losing their churches.

So the new Catholic Church to be located in Sandino, he said, amounts to a new weapon for the Cuban government.

The Rev. Ramon Hernandez of St. Lawrence Church, who spoke with the Tribune recently about the drive to raise money for the church and his own upbringing in Cuba, could not be reached for comment Wednesday on this view of the governments motives in allowing him to proceed.

Lleonart Barroso was in Tampa as keynote speaker at a luncheon hosted by United for Human Rights, a Los Angeles-based education group.

The luncheon celebrated the 66th anniversary of the signing at the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The event was held inside the Church of Scientologys Ybor City headquarters.

Gracia Bennish, United for Human Rights president and a member of the Church of Scientology, said the church publishes her organizations materials but has no other link to it.

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Pastor: Cuba will use new church as a tool