Havana/The Cuban Government has expelled the Mexican priest José Ramírez, a member of the Congregation of the Mission, for ringing the bells of the Parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal – known as La Milagrosa – in the Havana neighborhood of Santos Suárez, during a cacerolazo on December 9 to protest against the incessant blackouts.
Ecclesiastical sources confirmed Martí News that the Government decided not to renew the priest’s temporary stay permit and urged him to leave the Island this Thursday.
The activist Adelth Bonne, a resident of the temple, denounced in a video on Facebook that this situation has caused alarm and commotion in the neighborhood, where the parish priest headed one of the most active social projects in the capital.
According to Bonne’s testimony, several people confirmed that police officers went to the church after the pot-banging. Some internal sources conveyed to the parishioners that it was all a “confusion”, but the order to leave suggests that it is a direct sanction for the episode of the bells.
/ Facebook/The Church in Cuba
The expulsion has generated concern among hundreds of neighbors who depend daily on La Milagrosa’s social services. The temple maintains a grandparent circle that offers breakfast, lunch and dinner; makes home visits for bedridden people; distributes school materials; and supports a free school for children with Down syndrome that operates with its own resources. A good part of these programs were coordinated by the parish priest, now forced to leave the Island.
“It would be one of the greatest injustices of the year,” said Bonne, who has documented the church’s impact on neighborhood life for decades. “If they close or limit that work, many grandparents will not have a way to survive.”
The episode involving the priest took place in the midst of a wave of demonstrations that broke out on Monday night and early Tuesday morningone of the largest in recent months, in Havana and other provinces affected by blackouts of between 12 and more than 20 hours. For the Government, as they explained, the ringing of the bells was interpreted as direct participation in a popular protest.
So far, neither the Archbishopric of Havana nor the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba have issued a public statement regarding the departure of the priest, who is already in Mexico.
This is not the first time that the regime’s friction with the Church has led to expulsion, as happened in 2022 with the Dominican Jesuit priest. David Pantaleon. Now, the forced departure of José Ramírez occurs at a time of growing tension between the Cuban Government and members of the Catholic Church who have taken critical positions on the crisis in the country.
