Havana/Pope Leo
“I have received with great concern news of increased tensions between Cuba and the United States, two neighboring countries, and I join the message of the Cuban bishops to promote dialogue,” said the pope, leaning out of the window of his study in the apostolic palace. The American pontiff also asked that Our Lady of Charity of Copper, the patron saint of Cuba, “protect and assist all the children of this beloved land.”
The Pontiff’s message came hours after the Cuban Episcopal Conference warned that, in the last six months, “the situation has worsened and anguish and hopelessness have worsened” in the country. Through a message on your page webthe Cuban bishops pointed out that, given the current panorama, the changes “are increasingly urgent.”
In their posture, they remembered their last calllast June, in which they warned about the collapse suffered by the Island and demanded urgent changes from the regime, and stressed that, at that time, “we imagined that things could not get worse”, but that “the recent news, which announces, among others, the elimination of all possibility of oil entering the country, set off alarms, especially for the less fortunate.” For this reason, they stressed in their statement, “the risk of social chaos and violence between the children of the same people is real.”
“Conflicts must be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, never by coercion or violence”
In reference to the order of the president of the United States, donald trumpto impose tariffs on countries that sell crude oil to the Island, the document added that “conflicts must be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, never by coercion or violence,” while calling for “an environment of plurality and respect within the country.”
Therefore, in the face of the hard line adopted by the White House, religious authorities also offered to mediate the growing tensions between Washington and Havana. They said that the Catholic Church of Cuba is willing to “contribute to lowering the tone of hostilities between the parties and creating spaces for fruitful collaboration in order to achieve the common good.”
They also emphasized that “the Catholic Church in Cuba will continue to accompany this people that we love, in the proper way that derives from the mission that the Lord entrusted to it. It will continue to pray for all, celebrate the faith, announce the Gospel, serve the poor, the sick, families and prisoners. It will continue to invite conversion, to the experience of brotherly love, justice and peace.”
Likewise, they pointed out that they long for “a renewed, prosperous and happy Cuba, but without increasing the suffering of the poor, the elderly, the sick, and the Cuban children.”
The positions of the bishops and the Pope allude to the serious economic crisis in which Cuba has been mired for more than five years, which has generated accelerated deterioration in areas such as electricity generation, due to which the country suffers prolonged daily blackouts, the collapse of public transportation, the zero production of food, as well as hospitals without supplies, problems with the water supply, accumulation of garbage in the streets, shortage of basic products, high inflation, growing dollarization, deterioration of public services, the epidemic which worsened in the last half of last year and a massive migration.
