HOW TO APPLY FOR A LICENSE TO VISIT CUBA

                               1.)   Go to the website at www.treas.gov

2.)     Click on Enforcement

3.)     Click on Foreign Assets Control

4.)     Click on Cuba Sanctions

5.)     Click on Comprehensive guidelines…

6.)  Go to page 37 or so of the guidelines and follow everything

       they ask you to do. (See below for what I wrote.)

7.)     Wait for 2 months and Voilá! you should receive your license.

Here is the letter our rector wrote affirming that ours was a real church, as per point #2 of the requirements for obtaining a license:  

26 July, 2006

Licensing Division

Office of Foreign Assets Control

U.S. Department of the Treasury

1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20220

To Whom It May Concern:

I write to provide certification that the Church of the Holy Comforter, Tallahassee, Florida is an unincorporated subsidiary of the Episcopal Diocese of Florida, Inc. – an exclusively religious, not-for-profit, 501c(3), Florida corporation, headquartered at 325 Market Street, Jacksonville, Florida.

Holy Comforter Church was organized as a congregation of the Diocese in 1953 to provide for the regular religious purposes of weekly worship services, pastoral care and counseling for its members, religious instruction for its members, particularly its children, and to serve the needs of the surrounding community.  Holy Comforter has met these objectives, uninterrupted, for 53 years under the leadership of the Bishops of Florida, the Rectors of the congregation, and its Vestries – an elected governing board comprised of lay people.

Holy Comforter Church proclaims, teaches, and lives the doctrinal faith of Christianity as witnessed in the ecumenical Christian creeds, the historical traditions and teachings of the Christian Church, and the specific doctrines and discipline of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA).  Holy Comforter is affiliated exclusively with this one denomination, ECUSA.

Sincerely,

The Rev. F. Thomas Crittenden, 5^th Rector of the Church of the Holy Comforter

Here is our application as I completed it:

Application for a Religious License to visit Cuba

Case No. CT-8358 (We had already applied once and been turned down, that is why we already had a number here.  We were turned down because I did not give enough details in the first application for point #5 where you list the type and examples of activities, so give LOTS!)

Church of the Holy Comforter

I.  Identify your organization.

            a.)  Provide the name and address of your religious organization

EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE HOLY COMFORTER

2015 FLEISCHMANN ROAD

TALLAHASSEE, FL 32308

            b.)  Provide name and phone number of institutional contact responsible for the application.

JULIA M. SULLIVAN

(850) 980-3503

II.  Written Certification that your organization meets each of the requirements.

SEE ATTACHED LETTER DATED 26 JULY, 2006 (original letter from first application) FROM THE REVEREND F. THOMAS CRITTENDEN

III.  Identify the category of travel:

We formally request a specific RELIGIOUS license pursuant to 515.566(a) of the Regulations authorizing individuals and groups affiliated in a formal significant way with the EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE HOLY COMFORTER to engage in transactions directly incident to a full-time program of religious activities in Cuba under the auspices of the EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE HOLY COMFORTER.

IV.  List and provide examples of activities:

1. We will be attending church services at two companion Episcopal churches.  Those churches are San Miguel y todos los Ángeles in the town of Ceballos and Santiago Apóstol in the town of Baraguá.
2. We will be participating in religious discussions having to do with our companion relationship at both churches.
3. We will be participating in religious celebrations such as the celebration of the Saint’s name of our churches.
4. We will participate in church services that are connected with religious holidays and celebrations. 
5. We will attend Bible study groups and Sunday school classes at both churches.
6. We will also attend the church of San Lucas in Ciego de Avila and participating in the same type of activities.  San Lucas, although not our companion church, is another Episcopal church and is the third church of our companion church rector, the Reverend José Ángel Gutiérrez of Ciego de Avila.
7. Examples of these activities in which we participated in these churches are:

a.)    Attending services at all 3 churches

b.)    Participating in religious celebrations held in the churches

c.)    Participation in discussions of the meaning of our companion relationship

d.)    Attending Bible study groups and Sunday school groups at all 3 churches.

V.  Written statement certifying the following:

a.)  That our license will not be used for touristic purposes.

            I hereby solemnly affirm that our license to visit Cuba has never been nor ever will be used for touristic purposes.  Our purposes for visiting Cuba are strictly for visiting our companion church there and participating in activities associated with our companion church.  Going to Cuba as a tourist has never been and will never be the purpose of our visits to Cuba and is stated clearly to all those who will travel that this is NOT a touristic visit and should not be viewed or undertaken as such.

b.)  That the proposed travel will be supervised by an official of our religious organization.

            The people who travel to Cuba under our license will always be supervised by an official of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter.  There will not be an occasion in which they will not be supervised by such a person.

c.)  All persons traveling pursuant to a license will engage in a “full-time schedule of religious activities that cannot be completed in a shorter period of time”.

            I hereby affirm that all persons traveling under our license will engage in a full-time schedule of religious activities which cannot be completed in a shorter period of time. 

I do hereby swear and affirm that all of the information above is correct and truthful.

Sincerely,

Julia M. Sullivan, Ph.D.