A campaign is launched to collect donations to “support priests and the religious”
EFE/14ymedio, Madrid, 5 September 2024 — The power cuts and the shortage of fuel, medicines and other basic goods hinder the work of the Catholic Church in Cuba, according to the bishop of Holguín, Emilio Aranguren, who this Thursday asked for help from Spanish Catholics to face “the worst moment” of the many experienced in his long pastoral life. “The current situation is worse than the one we saw in the 90s, in the so-called Special Period,” the 74-year-old said. “There is a great shortage of basic necessities that are only available at exorbitant prices.”
“The issue of medicines is very serious,” he added. “For example, there are many problems to find the necessary drug in case of dementia and that makes the patients very upset and makes their lives and those around them very difficult.”
Faced with this situation, Aranguren connected this Thursday by videoconference with Spanish journalists to support the campaign “The Church in Cuba, where nothing is impossible,” promoted in Spain by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The purpose of the campaign is to collect donations to “support the priests and religious in their survival” and to provide “material means so that they can exercise their pastoral and evangelical work,” said the director of ACN Spain, José María Gallardo.
“Cubans are experiencing many difficulties and need the comfort offered by priests,” said Aranguren, who recalled that Cuba has “very few priests,” and they have to travel great distances to be able to attend to all their parishioners.
“The Cuban Church is poor. It is a Church that does not generate income and has only what the faithful contribute”
“The Cuban Church is poor. It is a Church that does not generate income and has only what the faithful contribute, which in the current economic situation is very limited,” he stressed.
The Cuban Church has 374 priests, leaving Cuba with the highest ratio of Catholics per priest in the world: 20,872 faithful per priest.
In addition, the other religious – 490 nuns and 173 monks – are mostly foreigners, and there are only 27 seminarians throughout the country. Thus, “the cornerstone” of the Cuban Church are the 3,699 lay people who sometimes offer their own houses to install small chapels to celebrate the Eucharist.
The lack of priests has its origin, among other factors, in the secularist policies promoted by Fidel Castro after the Revolution
According to Aranguren, the relationship of the Catholic Church with the communist authorities has improved in recent years, and he pointed out that “attitudes against religious expression on the part of officials, teachers and authorities has decreased, although there are some specific cases.” The prelate did not give details about any of the priests who have been critical of the regime and have received pressure for it, such as Leandro Naún, Alberto Reyes and Lester Zayas. Last April, sources from the Cuban Catholic Church told this newspaper that relations with the Government, precisely, “are going through their worst moment.”
Without referring to it, Aranguren insisted: “There has been a process of learning and understanding of what a Church means within a secular State, and lately the authorities have even sometimes positively valued the actions of the Church .”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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