I would like to thank the Mission Fund for its donation towards our Augustinian mission in Havana, Cuba. I greatly appreciated this help since it is extremely useful for our various projects.
As everyone knows the Cuban revolution in 1959 led to Cuba becoming a communist country by 1961. This was a terrible blow to the Catholic Church and the communist government prohibited the Church from giving a Christian education to the people; children and youngsters were subsequently brought up under an atheist and Marxist ideology.
Although Fidel Castro’s revolution positively reformed the educational and health systems the Cuban people are today still subjected to the disastrous economic, political, social and cultural policies of the Marxist and communist system.
Blessed Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998 and since then the Church has been recovering its natural freedom and place in Cuban society. Last March, Pope Benedict XVI travelled to the country to pay homage to the Virgin Mary, Mother of Charity of Cobre, to strengthen the people’s faith and to sustain the effort of the local Church in contributing to the building of Cuban society.
Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana, has been promoting a spiritual and academic programme for the formation of lay Christians to help renew Cuban society.
The Augustinians have a long historical relationship with Cuba. Our first presence dates back to the XVII century when the first Augustinians came from Mexico. In less than a century they succeeded in building one of the most famous universities of Cuba, Universidad de Santo Tomás of La Habana, a primary and a secondary school and two new parishes.
One of these parishes recently became quite famous, since it is the parish church of Saint Rita from where, on Sundays, the Damas Blancas, the so called wives of political prisoners, march in protest against the lack of liberty, after having participated in the Eucharist.
The Augustinians’ activities came to an abrupt end in 1962 when our Augustinian brothers were asked to leave the country and our university and schools became state property.
However, in 2006 the Augustinians were called back by the Cuban hierarchy; first, in Chambas in the civil province of Ciego de Avila, then in Puerto Padre, province of Las Tunas. Finally, four years ago, the Cardinal allowed us to come back to his archdioceses of Havana.
The Cardinal has asked us to move to the parish of Cristo del Buen Viaje, which was ours. So we will recover our house and we hope to transform it into a house of formation for Cuban youngsters who would like to embrace the Augustinian life. We hope that our first two Cuban candidates will be able begin their academic formation by next September.
The mission of our Augustinian community in Havana consists of pastoral care of our parish of Barreras and later on that of Cristo del Buen Viaje, the academic formation of seminarians, collaboration in the building of the new Pontifical University and Augustinian formation of our Cuban candidates.
The donation by the Mission Fund will serve all these purposes. Already some aid has been given to our parish which is situated in a poor zone at the outskirts of Havana. Another substantial part will go towards the daily running of the archdiocesan seminary.
No word of praise and thanks are enough to underline the importance of the Mission Fund and the dedication of those who run this Maltese Catholic institution. I call on our generous Maltese people to continue to contribute according to their possibilities to this Mission Fund.
Donations can be made through the following banks: HSBC (account No: 061 197 448 050), BoV (account No: 163 007 980 19), APS (account No: 200 008 207 62), BANIF (account No: 000879 631 01). For more information, please consult the following website: www.missionfund.org.mt