May 28, 2006

President George W. Bush

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As leaders of Christian denominations and ecumenical organizations in the United States, 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 write you today because recent policy decisions by the State Department and the Treasury Department are deeply damaging to our ability to work with our sister churches in Cuba. Regulatory decisions made by these agencies curtail religious freedom, and impair our ability to participate in what we understand to be the churches’ global mission.

For more than a decade, U.S. church bodies, whether national, regional, or local, have been eligible to receive licenses to conduct religious travel to Cuba. These licenses have allowed us to work closely with partner churches and religious institutions and to assist Cuban churches in their important faith witness.

But new interpretations of U.S. government regulations have suddenly restricted our ability to work with our partners. National denominational bodies and religious organizations are now eligible only for very restricted licenses, which limit us to one trip per quarter, and require us to submit at the beginning of the year a list of no more than 25 people who will participate in each trip. These impractical restrictions have reduced our ability to send religious delegations to Cuba, limit our opportunities to accompany and support our Cuban church partners, and have the effect of severely restricting participation in Cuba missions by many local U.S. churches and congregants. We are deeply troubled by these decisions; we believe them to be unfair and inappropriate, and to reflect undue governmental interference in the exercise of religion.

We write today to call these issues to your attention. We know that you have asked the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, chaired by Secretary Rice, to make a set of recommendations to you about U.S. policy toward Cuba by the beginning of May. We hope you will use the opportunity created by this review of Cuba policy to affirm your Administration’s support for the free exercise of our work in mission and fellowship with churches and ecumenical agencies in Cuba, and to see that these restrictive and unnecessary regulations are reversed.

Respectfully,

Reverend John L. McCullough

Executive Director and CEO

Church World Service

Reverend Robert Edgar

General Secretary

National Council of Churches USA

The Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold

Presiding Bishop and Primate

The Episcopal Church

Reverend Mark S. Hanson

Presiding Bishop

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Reverend Dr. Stan Hastey

Executive Director

Alliance of Baptists

Reverend Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick

Stated Clerk of the General Assembly

Presbyterian Church, (USA)

Reverend A. Roy Medley

General Secretary

American Baptist Churches USA

Reverend Dr. Larry Pickens

General Secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity

and Inter-religious Concerns

United Methodist Church

Reverend Cally Rogers-Witte

Executive for Wider Church Ministries

United Church of Christ

Reverend David A. Vargas

President, Division of Overseas Ministries

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Cc: White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

The Honorable John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State