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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The March visit to Cuba by Pope Benedict XVI has helped reawaken people’s interest in the Catholic Church, according to two Cuban bishops visiting the United States.
But it also has stirred criticism of the church’s efforts to work with the government more and may be connected to a fire of suspicious origin that gutted a travel agency that organizes charter flights from Florida to Cuba.
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican spokesman praised Cuba’s decision to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s request to make Good Friday a national holiday this year.
“It is certainly a very positive sign,” Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said April 1.
Catholic News Service
HAVANA — A few hours before they planned to attend an outdoor Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI, members of a Catholic dissident group were reportedly arrested by Cuban police.
Alejandrina Garcia de la Rivas and Laura Maria Labrada Pollan, members of the Ladies in White — “Damas de Blanco” — were arrested before 6 a.m. March 28, said Blanca Reyes, a member of the organization who now lives Madrid, Spain.
EL COBRE, Cuba — Entrusting people to Mary’s maternal care is a normal Catholic practice, but when Pope Benedict XVI prayed that Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre would wrap her golden mantle around the people of Cuba, it was particularly poignant.
For 400 years, Cubans, believers and nonbelievers alike, have brought their sorrows and joys before the little statue of Mary, and even Cuba’s communist rulers have claimed her as a cultural icon of the Cuban struggle for freedom and equality.
Catholic News Service
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba — Celebrating an outdoor Mass on his first day in Cuba, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the struggles of the country’s Catholics after half a century of communism and described human freedom as a necessity for both salvation and social justice.
The pope spoke March 26 in Antonio Maceo Revolution Square, in Cuba’s second-largest city. He had arrived in the country a few hours earlier, after spending three days in Mexico.
Catholic News Service
HAVANA — Preaching at Mass in Havana’s Revolution Square, location of the headquarters of Cuba’s Communist Party, Pope Benedict XVI called for full religious freedom and greater respect for human rights on the island.
“In Cuba steps have been taken to enable the church to carry out her essential mission of expressing the faith openly and publicly,” the pope said during his homily March 28. “Nonetheless, this must continue forward.”
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict’s trip to Mexico and Cuba March 23-28 will be a relatively brief one, consisting of a little more than two days in each country. Yet his visit is bound to highlight a wide range of prominent issues affecting an entire continent of crucial importance to the Catholic Church.
The pope arrives in Leon, in central Mexico, late afternoon local time March 23. His first full day’s schedule will be light, no doubt reflecting concerns for the health of the pope, who turns 85 April 16. Pope Benedict’s flight will have taken him across eight time zones, to a city 6,000 feet above sea level (compared to only 70 in Rome).
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — Celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and confirming he will travel to Mexico and Cuba in the spring, Pope Benedict XVI called on the people of Latin America to hold firm to their faith.
During his homily at the Mass Dec. 12 in St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope prayed that God would guide the decisions of the Latin American people, so they could progress in “building a society based on the development of good, the triumph of love and the expansion of justice.”
HAVANA — The Cuban bishops announced that 2012 would be a Marian jubilee year and that Pope Benedict XVI would come to Cuba as a “pilgrim of La Caridad,” the popular name for the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, the country’s patroness.
In a Dec. 8 pastoral letter, they declared a jubilee year from Jan. 7, 2012, through Jan. 6, 2013, and said Cubans need the joy of faith, the strength of Christian love, and the light of hope that can come from “a reunion with our Christian roots” and with the “enthusiastic reception of the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
