The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, met this Wednesday behind closed doors with representatives of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba (COCC). The meeting was held “as part of the exchanges that the highest leadership of the country maintains with different sectors of the national society,” said a report from the Noticiero Estelar of Cuban Television.
The brief information also stressed that “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.”
The meeting took place at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana and among the attendees from the government side were the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, the ideological leader of the Communist Party of Cuba , Rogelio Polanco Fuentes and the head of the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Party, Caridad Diego Bello, among other senior officials.
“The meeting took place in a climate of mutual respect, in keeping with the Revolution’s policy towards religion and believers and full religious freedom”
Regarding the religious part, the presence of Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, Archbishop of Havana, and the President of the COCC and Bishop of Holguín, Emilio Aranguren Echeverría, accompanied by other representatives of the Catholic Church, stood out.
According to the official press, Díaz-Canel began the meeting by remembering Félix Varela, a Catholic priest and one of the founding fathers of the nation – “the first who taught us to think”, he said – and then both parties expressed their “gratitude for the possibility of the meeting”, in which 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” were discussed, indicated a note from the Presidency.
The meeting, however, gives rise to speculation after the contacts in recent months to explore a possible release of political prisoners mediated by the bishops. Sources close to the Vatican told 14ymedio last march that Havana is pressing to seek the mediation of the Church in an eventual new thaw with Washington.
According to this information, the regime wants to repeat the strategy used with the Black Spring prisoners, but “the difficulty is that Cuba is giving in less and less and the international political context is not the same as it was twenty years ago.”
Sources close to the Vatican told 14ymedio last March that Havana is pressing to seek the mediation of the Church in an eventual new thaw with Washington
Earlier this year, Cardinal Beniamino Stella paid a visit to Havana to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the historic apostolic visit to Cuba by John Paul II, the first pope to make a pastoral visit to the island. his successors, Benedict XVI (2012) and Francisco (2015 and 2016).
Pope Francis’ trips to the island occurred at a historic moment, in the midst of the process of restoring relations with the United States, after more than 50 years of enmity, a diplomatic turn that had the support and mediation of the Vatican and the pontiff. Argentinian.
Cardinal Stella then gave a speech at the University of Havana, in which he vindicated the role of dialogue, based on “goodness and respect”, both within Cuba and in its relations with the United States, and considered that “speaking can finding solutions”.
The Vatican wants “those who have power to be able to talk to each other, to be able to listen to each other. Hopefully it happens and it happens soon (this dialogue between Havana and Washington) and it becomes an important step for many advances that the Cuban people greatly need.” “, added Stella, who was apostolic nuncio in Cuba between 1993 and 1999.
the Cuban president assured Cardinal Stella that he would look for ways to “resolve the expectations of both parties”
Likewise, after his speech, he told the press that the pope “very much wants there to be a positive response” from the Cuban government so that the young people who were sentenced for the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, are released.
In a meeting at the end of the visit of the papal envoy, the Cuban president assured Cardinal Stella that he would look for ways to “solve the expectations of both parties” and expressed the desire to “continue advancing in the relations of the Cuban State with the Holy Headquarters and also with the Catholic Church in Cuba”.
In 1998, the visit of John Paul II and his message for “Cuba to open up to the world and the world to open up to Cuba” marked a milestone in the country’s history and also the beginning of the rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the State. after decades of crises, disagreements and tensions.
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