Cuban government approves new churches in Santiago-
including one to commemorate Benedict XVI's visit
by Domenico Agasso jr
Translated from the Italian service of
February 6, 2013
Less than a year after Pope Benedict XVI's historic visit to Cuba comes the news from that Caribbean island that a church will be built in Santiago, eastern Cuba, to commemorate the event.
The city of Santiago de Cuba, not far from the site of the Marian shrine in Cobre to Cuba's patroness, Nuestra Senora de la Caridad (Our Lady of Charity), was the first place in Cuba visited by the Holy Father last March. The altar of the new church will be that built for the Papal Mass celebrated by the Pope in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion on March 26, 2012.
This is considered one of the 'fruits' borne by the seed sown with the courageous visit of John Paul II in 1998, as the first Pope ever to visit Cuba, which took place when Fidel Castro was still in charge.
[NB: The first concrete outcome of Benedict XVI's visit last year was that the Communist government declared Good Friday a national holiday, just as it decided to make Christmas a holiday once again after John Paul II's viist.]
The provincial council of Santiago de Cuba announced the news, along with the equally important development that the government has returned two churches and a parish house to the Archdiocese of Santiago.
These properties had been confiscated shortly after the Communist regime was installed in the early 1960s, and the archdiocese has always asked for their restitution. The construction of new churches on these sites has also been approved.
In the district of Abel Santamaria, a church dedicated to St. Joseph the Laborer will replace a chapel which was converted by the Communists into the local seat of the Academy of Sciences.
The parish of La Purisima Concepcion will build a new church dedicated to St. Benedict on a church site that became commercial property now occupied by a bakery.
And a building that belonged to the parish of Our Lady of Charity, and that the Communists converted into an elementary school, will be turned back to parish purposes after the end of the schoolyear.
A statement from the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba calls on all Christians "to thank God and all those who contributed to make these measures possible for the good of the community".
It expresses regret that a parish church in Cobre, site of the shrine to Nuestra Senora de Caridad, still has to be returned. The church was turned into the local headquarters of the Ministry of Commerce.
The archdiocese is hopeful it will eventually be returned in view of its historical and cultural significance. Constructed in 1601, it was the third parish church in eastern Cuba, and the starting point for the pilgrimages on foot to the Marian shrine.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/02/2013 15:25]