The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed its support and congratulated the administration of Joe Biden for the new measures towards Cuba in economic and social terms.
The Conference has traditionally had a position favorable to the normalization of ties between the two countries, for which it held recent announcements from washingtonalthough he acknowledged the existence of “points of disagreement”.
“We commend the Administration’s renewed interest in restarting the engagement” of the United States with Cuba, Bishop David J. Malloy, chairman of the Conference’s International Justice and Peace Committee, said in a statement, who, however, noted that ” points of contention remain between our countries” and that “the punitive isolation of Cuba has not produced the economic and social change that the United States has sought to effect.”
“Expanding travel opportunities for US citizens, as well as lifting onerous limitations on remittances, will strengthen the family, economic and social ties between our countries. Cuba’s developing civil society and private sector depend on the leadership provided by the active engagement of American civil society in Cuba,” she emphasized.
Malloy stressed that the US bishops, including the Cuban-American bishops, together with the Holy See and the bishops of Cuba, “continue to emphasize the vital importance of bilateral engagement and mutually beneficial trade relations between the United States and Cuba.”
The foregoing, he said, is “the key to a transformative change on the island.”
