MADRID, Spain.- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel met this Wednesday with representatives of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana.
As he said in Twitter the Presidency of Cuba, the meeting was “part of the meetings with different sectors” that Díaz-Canel is developing.
According to the information, the exchange addressed issues “related to the work of the Catholic Church, the socioeconomic situation of the country, the strengthening of values in society, among other matters of common interest.”
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the @PCCParty and President of the Republic, @DiazCanelBreceived this Wednesday, at the Palace of the Revolution, representatives of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of #Cuba, as part of their meetings with different sectors. ?? pic.twitter.com/ZrBEIs11Xp
— Presidency Cuba ?? (@PresidenciaCuba) April 26, 2023
Until now, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba has not ruled on the matter.
“The meeting took place in a climate of mutual respect, in correspondence with the policy of the Revolution towards religion and believers and full religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba,” said the official press.
However, the Cuban regime has been denounced on numerous occasions for controlling the Church in accordance with his communist ideology and for reacting with repression against Christian activists who criticize him.
In the exchange of this April 26 participated Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, Archbishop of Havana; the President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, Monsignor Emilio Aranguren Echeverría, Bishop of Holguín-Tunas, among other episcopal representatives.
While Díaz-Canel was accompanied by the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz; the head of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández; the member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party and head of its Ideological Department, Rogelio Polanco Fuentes; the head of the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Party, Caridad Diego Bello; and other Party and Government officials.
This meeting occurs a few months after Cardinal Beniamino Stella will visit Cuba as an envoy of Pope Francis, in the context of the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s trip to the island.
In November 2021, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba requested that violence be avoided in the framework of the demonstrations called for the November 15 (15N) of that year in various provinces of the island.
Last February the Catholic Bishops of Cuba expressed their solidarity with the more than 200 political prisoners banished by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo; Among them was Monsignor Rolando Álvarez Lagos, who refused to be deported. For this he received a sentence of 26 years in prison accused of committing treason, spreading false news and contempt of the authorities.
