Pope Benedict XVI said that there are growing signs of religious freedom in Cuba and that there is an opportunity for reconciliation between that nation and the United States, the Vatican Information Service reported Thursday.
"Certain signs of openness in relations with the neighboring United States presage new opportunities for a mutually beneficial rapprochement, in full respect for the sovereignty and rights of States and their citizens," the Pope said during a ceremony to welcome Havana's new ambassador to the Holy See, Eduardo Delgado Bermúdez.
Benedict also expressed sympathy for Cuba's plight as a result of "the consequences of the serious world crisis which, in addition to the devastating effects of natural disasters and the economic embargo, particularly affects the poorest people."
The pontiff cited encouraging signs of religious freedom, including "the celebration of Mass in various prisons, the performance of religious processions, the repair and restitution of certain church buildings" and "the extension of social security to cover priests and the clergy," the Vatican agency reported.
"It is my hope that tangible signs of openness in the exercise of religious freedom will continue to increase, as has been happening over recent years," Benedict said.
In addition, the Pope voiced his hope that the Cuban government will consent to the Church's "participation in the social communications media and in complementary educational duties, consistent with her specific pastoral and spiritual mission."
To read the entire Vatican account, in English, click here.
Papal envoy prepares for duty in Cuba
Becciu, 61, was appointed to the Cuban post last July by Pope Benedict XVI, replacing Msgr. Luigi Bonazzi, who, after five years in Havana, was named apostolic nuncio to Lithuania.
Born in Sardinia, Becciu is described as an expert diplomat who speaks several languages. He became a priest in 1972, joined the Holy See's diplomatic service in 1984 and served in nunciatures in the Central African Republic, Sudan, New Zealand, Liberia, Britain, France and the United States.
The Angolan press report did not say how soon he will take up his new duties.
The apostolic nuncio, commonly known as the Pope's ambassador, is the Pontiff's representative to the civil government and the Roman Catholic communities in the country where he is accredited. The nunciature in Cuba was established on Sept. 11, 1935.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Bishop Wenski on fact-finding tour of Cuba
Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, former auxiliary Bishop of Miami, is one of three Roman Catholic prelates from the United States who will visit Cuba next week.
With him will go Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, and auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú of San Antonio. The three will spend five days on the island, touring churches and seeing first-hand the reconstruction accomplished with money donated by U.S. churches after hurricanes Paloma, Gustav and Ike struck Cuba in 2008. They plan to visit the provinces of Havana, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba. [For an AFP update, click here. For reaction from the Cuban American National Foundation, click here.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Priest was slain by 'partner,' paper claims
A Spanish priest murdered in February in Havana was killed by his "sentimental partner," the Spanish newspaper El País reported Sunday.
The Rev. Eduardo de la Fuente Serrano, 61, in Cuba since 2006, was found on a roadside outside Havana on Feb. 14. Church sources said he was stabbed and strangled. According to El País, De la Fuente "died at the hands of another man, who was his sentimental partner, to whom [the priest] passed himself off as a foreign businessman." The police told the Church about this "as well as about the capture of the perpetrator and his accomplices, but, because of its sensitive nature, the affair was treated with the utmost discretion."
In a statement published Sunday in the Cuban daily Juventud Rebelde, the Archbishopric of Havana said that the police investigation in De la Fuente's case continues. "At least one detainee has confessed his culpability and responsibility. Those who committed that deed were unaware of the victim's status as a priest," the statement said. The Church rejected any attempt to give the slaying "a religious or political hue totally foreign to the reality of the criminal deed."
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Bishops Conference has a new leader
Msgr. Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, last week was elected president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba. Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana, was elected the conference's vice president.
The Episcopate is composed of 13 bishops who represent 11 ecclesiastical jurisdictions in Cuba; two of them are auxiliary bishops in Havana.
Monsignor García, 64, was appointed by the Vatican to the Santiago archdiocese in February 2007; until then, he was bishop of the Bayamo-Manzanillo diocese. In December 2007, he made news when he complained to the Cuban government about police violence in the repression of 18 dissidents who staged a demonstration at St. Teresita Church.
For years, the Guantánamo-born prelate has handled Church relations with the diaspora, coordinating meetings between Cuban clergy on the island and their counterparts in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Miami and New York.
In 2006, Monsignor García was one of two bishops allowed to broadcast Holy Week messages on the radio, an unprecedented concession by the Cuban government. [UPDATE: For an interview with the new conference president, in Spanish, click here.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Havana OKs renovation of churches
The Cuban government approved a plan to renovate four Roman Catholic churches in Havana province, the Mexican news agency Notimex reported Wednesday, quoting Vatican sources. The cost will be US$81,000, one third of which was donated by British benefactors, the sources said.
The churches to be repaired are those of Güira de Melena, San José de Lídice, St. Francis Xavier, and Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. The funds will be delivered by Aid to the Church in Need, a Vatican agency that underwrites development projects throughout the world.
Sources in ANC told Notimex that they consider Raúl Castro's rise to the presidency initiated "a new relationship" between the government and the Catholic Church. "Obviously, there is still a long way to go, but this move gives us some hope," the sources said.
Based in Königstein, Germany, the 62-year-old ANC describes itself as "an international pastoral aid organization" that tries "to help Catholics in need wherever they are repressed or persecuted and therefore prevented from living according to their faith." Its current president, the Rev. Joaquín Alliende-Luco, took office last October.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Catholic spokesman pleads for dialogue
In the Washington-Havana rift there's enough blame to go around, so let us make a brand-new start, says a spokesman for the Cuban Catholic Church.
In an editorial in the archdiocesan newspaper Palabra Nueva (New Word), editor Orlando Márquez says "there has been no shortage of passion" in relations between the U.S. and Cuba. To the Cuban government, "it would seem that all the world's ills are [in the United States] and only there. The worst, the most despicable. And [the government's] attempt to separate the U.S. leaders from 'the noble American people' who elect them is absurd and unsustainable."
Referring to a letter written in 1958 by Fidel Castro in which Castro flogged Washington for supporting the Batista regime, Márquez asks: "Should our present and future history really depend on [an event] that happened more than 50 years ago and the feelings manifested in a letter written in the heat of those events? Must we depend forever on what might have been but wasn't during the Missile Crisis in 1962? I don't think so." (Castro's letter was reprinted in Granma last year.)
"On both sides [of the Straits] we can already hear panicked warnings that oppose a new status in the relations between the two countries. [...] Out there, some talk about the danger of 'recognizing' a dictatorship that does not change. Over here, those who always warned of the imminence of a military invasion [...] now raise the danger of a 'cultural invasion' that can destroy us."
"There is a need for political will to act with decision and courage," Márquez urges. A newly ascended leader "cannot act only as the guardian of previous history. [...] The signals sent by both presidents suggest an apparent commitment to the present moment: the time for change. Gesture-for-gesture and mutual concessions was a good first message by the Cuban president to the U.S. president early this year. Both men could send the world a good signal if they demonstrate that an understanding is possible [...] and that life and relations between the two people are not dictated by 'manifest destiny' or an 'anti-imperialist feeling.'"
"If we begin a dialogue with the White House before [opening] a national dialogue, that wouldn't be bad. The order of the factors does not alter the final product [...] but a national dialogue will always be more important, because if Obama is not a change for Cuba, shouldn't we change Cuba for the Cubans?" To read the entire editorial, in Spanish, click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Havana archdiocese opens its website
The Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de La Habana has launched a Web page as a means of communication and evangelization, the news agency Zenit reported Sunday. The site provides a history of the diocese, a directory with the names of the bishops, the priests, the religious communities and homilies and documents of the principal church events in the Cuban capital.
In a letter of welcome, Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, 
Archbishop of Havana, concedes that the site is "not fully completed, but little by little we'll improve it." The motive behind the site is "to seek the truth, not to hide it in closed coffers but to share it, to announce it," Ortega says, adding that that truth is Jesus Christ.
"We enter this novel world [of the Internet] to announce Him and proclaim Him," Ortega writes, and "to inform about the life and mission [...] of the Church that serves as a pilgrim in Havana -- its clergy, religious people, lay movements, publications, etc." And he closes by inviting readers "to be disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ, so our people can live in Him."
To access the archdiocese site, click here.
Officials thank God for the Revolution
Government officials on Friday attended a special service at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Havana to thank God for 50 years of the Revolution, the daily Granma reported. Among those present were Politburo member Esteban Lazo Hernández (at center, in photo) and National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón.
The service was sanctioned by the Cuban Council of Churches; the Rev. Raúl Suárez, a deputy to the National Assembly and director of the Martin Luther King Center, officiated. According to Granma, the program included prayer, singing, readings from the Bible, testimonies, expressions of thanksgiving, and a blessing to the motherland.
On Saturday, Suárez led about 80 Cubans and foreign visitors of various Christian denominations to lay flowers at the tomb of Ernesto Che Guevara in Santa Clara, province of Villa Clara. The ceremonies were part of an international conference in Havana called Religious Communities in a Process of Change. For details, click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
