Cuban Catholic Bishops Express Solidarity with Venezuela

Dionisio García Ibáñez, archbishop of Santiago de Cuba. (Networks)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 30 May 2017—Cuba’s Catholic bishops are not “on the fringes of the suffering and uncertainty experienced by Venezuelans,” according to a letter released this week signed by Dionisio García Ibáñez, archbishop of Santiago de Cuba and president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba .

The letter, addressed to the Venezuelan episcopate, refers to the “difficult moments” that the South American country has experienced since the beginning of protests almost two months ago in favor of and against the Government which have degenerated into acts of violence and left a 59 dead.

“We send them our prayer of solidarity,” adds the bishops’ statement and calls for “the paths of forgiveness, constructive and sincere dialogue as well as the yearnings for truth, justice and a commitment to constitutional legality to lead to a stable and true peace.”

The missive extends “firm support” to the Venezuelan Church in “the wishes expressed in its repeated interventions in favor of peace and concord.”

Recently, during the opening of the XLIII Special Plenary Assembly held in Caracas between May 16 and 18, the president of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, Diego Padrón Sánchez, drew attention to the “picture of barbarism and violence” installed in the country that has returned to “an anti-culture of death.”

The priest said that the “state of affairs” that has led “the current ruling political system is reasonably unjustifiable, ethically illegitimate and morally intolerable.”