He was involved in many Church initiatives, such as the Center for Civic and Religious Formation and the magazine ’Vitral’
14ymedio, Havana, 27 March 2025 — The Bishop Emeritus of Matanzas, Monsignor Manuel Hilario de Céspedes y García-Menocal, died Wednesday night at the age of 81. Manolo, as he was known within the Catholic Church, bore the surnames of two of the island’s presidents of Mambi lineage: Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the first president of the Republic in Arms, and Mario García Menocal, president from 1913 to 1921.
After Fidel Castro came to power, few prominent Cuban families decided to stay and take on the island’s future. Although part of his family emigrated to Italy, both the bishop and his older brother, Carlos Manuel, who was vicar of the Archdiocese of Havana, dedicated their entire lives to Cuba.
Céspedes was born in the capital in 1944, studied at a Marist school in La Víbora, and in the 1960s moved to Puerto Rico, where he graduated in Electrical Engineering. In 1966, he traveled to Venezuela and began seminary studies in Caracas, where he was ordained a priest in 1972. Twelve years later, he returned to the island and served as parish priest of Minas de Matahambre and the Hermitage of Our Lady of Charity in Pinar del Río.
As a priest, he attended the Cuban National Ecclesiastical Meeting as a delegate, the first such gathering of its magnitude permitted by the Communist Party in 1986, where the situation of the Catholic community on the island was assessed. The event marked a turning point in the history of Cuban Catholicism, which, due to the lack of religious leaders, seemed on the verge of disappearing. It also strengthened the role of the laity.
He was a delegate to the Cuban National Ecclesiastical Meeting, the first such gathering of its magnitude permitted by the Communist Party in 1986.
He was also an advisor from 1987 to 2005 to the Catholic Commission for Culture, created to promote Christian values through art and education. Within the framework of this initiative, the Félix Varela Institute was founded in 2013, as well as the John Paul II Bioethics Center, founded in 1997 after the Pope’s visit.
Céspedes was involved in many other Church initiatives, such as the Center for Civic and Religious Formation and the Vitral magazine. He was a founding member of both and, in the case of the publication, also served on its editorial board until 2005.
Another founder and frequent collaborator of Vitral is academic Dagoberto Valdés, who mourned the bishop’s death on social media. “I am honored to have worked together from 1984 to 2005. As a priest and advisor to secular apostolic works, he was exemplary in promoting the laity, in the respectful and active exercise of his role as advisory companion, encouraging us and allowing us to assume the responsibilities inherent to our lay vocation and mission,” he wrote.
That year, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Bishop of Matanzas, where he remained until 2022, when he retired.
That year, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Bishop of Matanzas, where he remained until his retirement in 2022. The Camagüey priest Juan Gabriel Díaz Ruiz then assumed the episcopate. Previously he had been Bishop of Ciego de Ávila since 2017.
Neutralized as a critical presence, the Catholic Church and its Bishops’ Conference have remained silent for months regarding the situation on the island. Bland messages, scoldings of priests and nuns who oppose the regime, and zero complaints about vandalism of churches and church buildings have characterized the institution.
The new term in the Episcopal Conference, headed by Arturo González of Villa Clara — who Miguel Díaz-Canel has claimed to respect — began this year with the release of more than 500 prisoners thanks to a negotiation with the Vatican in which the Cuban bishops, as well as their cardinal, did not admit to having participated.
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