Dozens of people come to the old garage opposite the cathedral every Sunday, to be given food
14ymedio, Santa Clara, 19 September 2024 – For five months, a garage opposite the Santa Clara cathedral has filled up with people in need of food. In two rooms inside the old ’storage’ – the name [in English] by which these old installations owned by the Catholic church are known by everyone in the city – a dinner is served up, comprising whatever is available. A layered salchichon sausage with salad, picadillo with mushrooms or olives or rice. The place is soon buzzing with activity. Everyone begins to chat. It happens each Sunday.
Cáritas, the Catholic humanitarian association, provides the food. It’s paid for by donations which “appear”, coming mostly from the German association Help for the Church in Need. It’s open to anyone, in theory, and in practice there are dozens who turn up – 60 or 70 people for whom the State has many names but few solutions: vagrants, the vulnerable, beggars. “They come here principally in search of food, but we also chat with them and make them feel welcomed”, a priest from the diocese tells 14ymedio.
A few diners have become celebrities in their own right, like “el Che”, a beggar who dresses in a military jacket and beret and sports a beard, and who, not infrequently, is the centre of attention, says the priest. “He gets together with two brothers”, he says, not without irony, “who, it just so happens, are called Fidel and Raúl”. There is limited space in the concrete garage, but generally there is a warm atmosphere at the dining tables.
Feeding the poor of Santa Clara isn’t a new project for the city’s Catholic church.
Feeding the poor of Santa Clara isn’t a new project for the city’s Catholic church. There have been many initiatives, all of them looked down upon by the local authorities. “It began when a number of young people from the diocese went out into the city giving out food bags but it didn’t please the authorities and ended up being suspended. Now this is being done again, thanks to various donations to Cáritas, but on the condition that it’s done with as little publicity as possible”, says the cleric.
In fact there is little of this activity to be seen on social media. Any image, in the hands of the authorities, could be used to monitor or even obstruct the project. The church, he says, continues to be closely watched by State Security, which, in an already familiar practice, “seems” to have informers in the parish, in cultural centres and in the diocese Training Centre, where courses on the margin of official indoctrination are still being taught.
Just like the country as a whole, the diocese’s humanitarian work is going through difficult times. Ever since the government’s Tarea Ordenamiento (’Ordering Task’) law, the church’s purchasing power has suffered an almost mortal blow and cutbacks have been very noticeable. Nevertheless, charity continues to be a priority and its assistance programmes – the already known distribution of basic supplies that they carry out in no small number of parishes, as well as the food kitchens and the nurseries – have not ceased to function.
Just like the country as a whole, the diocese’s humanitarian work is going through difficult times
In other scenarios, such as in the refuges and clinics, run by Corazón Solidario (Caring Heart) in Santa Clara, where they give out prescription medicines to those in need of them, the administering is adequate but also they have to rely upon Cáritas.
Cuban bishops brought this to attention in a letter written at the beginning of September in which they asked for help and support from Spanish catholics. “The situation”, they said, “is worse than that which we saw in the 90’s, in the so-called Special Period“. Emilio Aranguren, president of the Bishops’ Forum, explained that there is a “huge scarcity of basic produce that can only be obtained at exorbitant prices”. There’s also the lack of medical supplies, which causes “the sick to be very much in distress and makes their lives and the lives of the people around them very difficult”.
Nor are there priests available to travel to the island – whose national clergy is in itself already depleted – a lack of which, in practice, means not being able to count upon enough reliable administrators for ecclesiastical projects and pastoral work.
This shortage of clergy is one of the problems which — according to Aranguren, the source interviewed by this newspaper, and two other prelates, Arturo González, vice president of Conference, and the Jesuit priest Juan de Dios Hernández, secretary general — was put to Pope Francis during their visit to the Vatican on 16 September.
The bishops confirmed that they did talk to the Pope about “the difficult reality” in the country
The three bishops have been extremely cautious about discussing the details of that meeting, but in brief announcements to ecclesiastical media they have confirmed that they did talk to the Pope about “the difficult reality” in the country, about which Francis – who has visited Cuba on a number of occasions – has been reluctant to make critical pronouncements.
The Episcopal Conference will hold elections in November and, despite the advanced age of the bishops (almost all being of retirement age and with no youthful replacements in sight) it’s hoped that Aranguren, who has occupied, since 2017, a post that has been in no small way delicate, will not return to the presidency. Nevertheless, the cleric told us in our interview that when it comes to Cuba it’s not impossible that he will have to continue in office.
In search of an official assessment of the Episcopal Conference’s view of the outlook for Cuba, 14ymedio has tried a number of times to contact its executive secretary, the cleric Ariel Suárez. Our calls have, however, not been answered.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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