Mexico presidential candidates Claudia Sheinbaum (left) and Xóchitl Gálvez speak after the last presidential debate ahead the presidential election at Centro Cultural Tlatelolco on May 19, 2024, in Mexico City, Mexico. / Credit: Medios y Media/G… […]
Father Alberto Reyes has emerged as a critical voice against the extreme poverty and repressive actions of Cuba’s police state. / Credit: Rachel Diez/EWTN Noticias
ACI Prensa Staff, May 22, 2024 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
Last week, Cuban priest Father Alberto Reyes started a peaceful protest over the situation in the country: ringing the bells of his parish as a sign of mourning every night there was no electricity.
The priest of the Archdiocese of Camagüey had announced his plan on May 17 in his column called “He Estado Pensando” (“I Have Been Thinking”), which he posts periodically on Facebook to reflect on the reality of life in Cuba.
In his post, Reyes had encouraged Cubans to stop collaborating with the regime by taking actions such as not attending its political meetings or joining the rapid-response brigades — used to repress opponents — among other measures.
Instead, he invited his compatriots to “speak based on the truth, publicly and from what is evident, from the reality that cannot be denied, without lying, without justifying the unjustifiable. And pray, so that the freedom with which God created us makes headway in our land.”
“I, in fact, have thought of a way, and it’s this: From now on, every night that we do not have electricity, I will ring the church bells 30 times, with the slow ringing of funeral processions, with the ringing that announces death and mourning: the agonizing death of our freedom and our rights, the suffocation and collapse of our lives,” wrote Reyes, pastor of the parish in Esmeralda.
However, after two nights, the priest was ordered to stop his peaceful protest.
On Facebook Cuban layman Osvaldo Gallardo, who currently lives in the United States and maintains contact with Reyes, indicated that the archbishop of Camagüey, Wilfredo Pino, told the priest to stop his initiative.
“Behind this ban, without a doubt,” Gallardo said, “is Caridad Diego Bello and her Office of Religious Affairs at the service of the PCC [Cuban Communist Party].”
Citing sources close to the Church, the Cuban media outlet 14ymedio indicated that Pino’s request was “clear” and “for the good of the Church and Father Alberto.”
According to the news outlet, “pressure from the PCC Religious Affairs Office, headed by Caridad Diego, are constant, but in the last three years, after the demonstrations of July 11, 2021, they have intensified, especially with the prohibition of processions and celebrations in numerous churches for fear of new protests.”
The Office of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba “manages the different aspects of religious life” in the country, as noted in the 2023 Religious Freedom Report of Aid to the Church in Need.
In this regard, in his Dec. 14, 2022, column, Reyes said that this office is “in charge of controlling the practice of the faith, of supervising each movement of the Church, and of insistently calling the bishops and superiors when what a priest or religious says or does bothers them, to try to make them the ones who ‘bring that priest or religious to heel’ while those really behind it are left with clean hands.”
In December 2020, ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, learned of one example of the pressure exerted by the PCC office when it ordered a parish in Camagüey not to hold Christmas parades, arguing that it was to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, despite the fact that other activities in the province had not been restricted.
Speaking with ACI Prensa, Gallardo asked Christians to pray for the personal safety of Reyes. “According to my opinion and judgment, he is in danger because it’s difficult to be a prophet in Cuba, … where he may or may not find support in the people around him, even within the Church itself,” he said.
Gallardo noted that for years the pastor of the Esmeralda parish has “raised his voice” in support of all the Cuban people “to denounce, to raise awareness about the reality” of the country. There is no religious freedom in Cuba, there is no freedom in Cuba, in any way,” he added.
“Cuba suffers and the Catholic Church in Cuba suffers the repression of a regime that ignores all the demands of the people or for freedom,” he stressed.
Gallardo thus reiterated his request for believers and people of goodwill to pray “for Father Alberto, because I believe that his personal safety and his freedom may be in danger at this time.”
Diego López Marina contributed to this article.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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The President of the Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress, Father Livingston Olivares (left), accompanies EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon (center-right), EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat (center-left), EWTN Production Director Michael Holmes (far right), and IEC Quito 2024 Communications Coordinator Marcelo Mejía (front, kneeling) at the Monument to the Equator, the exact location of the Equator (from which the country of Ecuador takes its name) on the outskirts of the country’s capital city of Quito, site of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress. / Credit: Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress
ACI Prensa Staff, May 21, 2024 / 06:40 am (CNA).
The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) has chosen EWTN as the official channel for providing live coverage of the event, which will take place from Sept. 8–15 in Quito, Ecuador.
“The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress, which will be held in Quito Sept. 8–15, has chosen EWTN as its official channel, which will broadcast everything related” to this great event, said Father Juan Carlos Garzón, secretary-general of the IEC Quito 2024, in a statement sent from Rome to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.
The theme for this year’s International Eucharistic Congress is “Fraternity to Heal the World.” On Monday, the Vatican also announced that Pope Francis designated Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect for the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, as pontifical legate to the congress.
Garzón was in Rome last week as part of a delegation, chaired by Alfredo Espinoza Mateus, archbishop of Quito and primate of Ecuador, “to hold a series of meetings with the main papal authorities.”
Since the beginning of the preparations for IEC 2024, Garzón added: “EWTN has been present at the orientation and training for IEC 2024 communications personnel.”
In tandem, to coordinate EWTN’s transmissions of IEC Quito 2024, a team from the network visited the Ecuadorian capital, including the Quito Metropolitan Convention Center, where the congress will be held.
The team was comprised of EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon, EWTN Director of Production Michael Holmes, and EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat.
Gagnon said EWTN transmissions of the event will be offered in Spanish, English, and German. “This will be a wonderful event for those attending and for those watching,” Gagnon said.
“For EWTN, it is an immense joy to be the channel for the Quito 2024 International Eucharistic Congress,” Duprat said. “It is essential for us to be the platform on which, no matter where our audience is, everyone can enjoy the most important Catholic events in the Church.”
As for coverage details, Duprat said: “The plan is to be able to offer this International Eucharistic Congress live and direct from Quito and in multiple languages [Spanish, English, and German] both through our television and radio signals, the internet, and through our digital app.”
The event coincides with the 150th anniversary of the 1874 consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1886, Quito was also the site of the first National Eucharistic Congress.
During their preparatory visit, the EWTN team traveled the route of a procession that will take place on Sept. 14 in the historic center of Quito, which will begin with a Mass in San Francisco Plaza and then head to the Basilica of the National Vow, where benediction will be given.
They also visited the IEC offices, where they were received by Garzón, who explained how the organization of the event is progressing, including the schedule of a theological symposium to be held Sept. 4–7, just prior to the Sept. 8–15 congress.
The EWTN delegation also visited the Middle of the World Park and Monument to the Equator, marking the equator dividing the northern and southern hemispheres and where a Liturgy of the Word is planned with emphasis on care for creation.
Registration for the International Eucharistic Congress, both for the theological symposium and for the congress itself, is underway and available through the event website.
The largest Catholic media organization in the world, EWTN’s 11 global TV channels and numerous regional channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 425 million television households in more than 160 countries and territories. EWTN platforms also include radio services transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and more than 600 domestic and international AM and FM radio affiliates and a worldwide shortwave radio service.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., EWTN News operates multiple global news services, including Catholic News Agency; The National Catholic Register newspaper and digital platform; ACI Prensa in Spanish; ACI Digital in Portuguese; ACI Stampa in Italian; ACI Africa in English, French, and Portuguese; ACI Mena in Arabic; CNA Deutsch in German; and ChurchPop, a digital platform that creates content in several languages. It also produces numerous television news programs including “EWTN News Nightly,” “EWTN News In Depth,” “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly,” and “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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