At least seven young priests have left the Archdiocese of Camagüey in recent years for different reasons.
The exodus from this ecclesiastical constituency has repercussions, not only on the Catholic Church, but on society and communities, where pastoral work is difficult.
Most of the clerics emigrated, including one of them who benefited from humanitarian parole, a US program for citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, who live under bloody dictatorships.
Some decided to hang up their cassock and found a family, while others had irreconcilable differences with the current Archbishop of Camagüey, Monsignor Wilfredo Pino Estévez, which motivated them to move to other Dioceses, inside or outside of Cuba.
Archdiocese of Camagüey, between octogenarians and seventies
In October 2023, a publication by Father José Rafael Grau Adán circulated on social networks and WhatsApp groups, confirming the departure of at least four priests.
“Everyone will already know that 4 of our youngest priests have left the Diocese. There were three of us left in our eighties, some of us in our seventies. “The religious, 4, and an Extensive Diocese, and the Bishop who will have to be a magician,” wrote.
Although the (supportive) post to which he had access Cubans around the World It was more of an SOS to keep active a 1989 Toyota car with which he traveled in his pastoral services, Grau hinted at those absences.
Michel Sabido, one of the Internet users who responded on Facebook, hoped that the octogenarian priest would be able to obtain the parts for his fiftieth anniversary vehicle.
“…however, there is something that worries me even more and that is the priestly stampede that is taking place in a Diocese that in chrism masses we had almost finished singing PEOPLE OF KINGS and the procession of priests had not finished going up to the presbytery. What are you doing? passing to the Diocese?”
Knowing noted that Father Grau would have counted incorrectly, since there are not four priests who have left the priestly Camagüey of yesteryear, and he named each one of them.
The list is made up of Alien Cruz, Andy Vidal, Yosbel Puentes, Rolando Montes de Oca, Bladimir Navarro and Fernando Gálvez.
Under the staff of Archbishop Willy Pino
Fernando Gálvez went from Lugareño, in the Camagüey municipality of Minas, to New Jersey, United States, after pressure from his Archbishop, Wilfredo Pino Estévez.
This was made known in an interview with the Cuban writer Osvaldo Gallardo González, activist for Religious Freedom in Cuba.
“They didn’t let me be the priest that Jesus Christ asked me to be from that town. “We are going to be a priest of another town, with pain and sadness,” lament.
His scolding began after publications on social networks against the tyrant Miguel Díaz-Canel and the episodes starring young people from the San Isidro Movement, as narrated in the dialogue. “Gallardo on his Island”, from the independent media Cuba Trends.
He also related that some ladies from Lugareño asked him for masses in memory of the dictator Fidel Castro and that he refused to do them, rather he rang the bells to celebrate, not the death of that person, but “the liberation of a people.”
The independent journalist Ileana Hernández, on June 22, 2021, expressed solidarity with the priest Gálvez.
“If we do not see one more publication by Father Fernando Gálvez about the problems of his parishioners, it is because the Archbishopric does not respond to #God but to a tyrannical regime. “Sending an emissary of God to silence so as not to bother the tyrant is an aberration.”he sentenced.
The Camagüey historian Joaquin Estrada Montalván mentioned several priests in the province who were reprimanded for being out of line with the “sounding silence” of the Bishops.
Here the name of Alberto Reyes Pías stands out, who was prohibited from publishing his column “Crónicas del Noroeste” (and more recently from ringing bells in protest of the blackouts). Now it was Gálvez’s turn, Estrada wrote.
“Cuban bishops find it increasingly difficult to establish ‘discipline’ in communication to their local clergy, in matters that are not strictly doctrine, theology and morality. The ‘Cuban world’ has changed and that includes the priests,” he asserted.
CONTEXT: Castroism prohibits a priest from ringing his church bells in every blackout
After pressure from the main ecclesiastical authority and reprimands for his publications contrary to the Castro dictatorship on the social network Facebook, Gálvez was demanded to remain silent, which he refused.
“I cannot remain in Cuba watching my people suffer and seeing my people what is happening and not say anything. “I can’t live that way and I’m not willing.” he told Monsignor Willy Pino and opted for exile.
This is also what diocesan Rolando Montes de Oca Valero did, although internally, who currently serves as parish priest of Nuestra Señora de la Paz, in the municipality of Nueva Paz, province of Mayabeque, Archdiocese of Havana.
Rolando was, in addition to vice-rector of the San Agustín Propedeutic Seminary of Camagüey and advisor of the diocesan Youth Ministry, parish priest of the Vertientes municipality. He made this known in a post dated July 26, 2020.
The reasons for his move were not reported, but some sources confirmed to Cubans around the World that his decision also had to do with pressure exerted by the main authority of the local Church.
Pilgrims, neither evil nor traitors
Yosbel Puentes Dousat, a native of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes municipality, was benefited from humanitarian parole. He had been practicing the priesthood for twelve years.
On October 21, 2023, an American family made a publication reporting that six years after meeting Puentes, they welcomed him to Minnesota.
“This weekend has been an immersion in what it means to be a Minnesotan and an American, including fishing, hunting, eating and more eating. We couldn’t be happier to have Yosbel with us; This has been a dream of ours (and yours) for many years. We feel very blessed.”
RELATED CONTENT: More than 67 thousand Cuban migrants arrived in the US through humanitarian parole in 2023
For his part, Idel Hernández would have hung up his cassock in 2019. His recent photos in cyberspace place him in New York, United States, after crossing the border after a dangerous journey.
Hernández, a native of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes municipality where he was parish priest, completed his pastoral work at the La Santa Cruz Catholic Church, in the Cruces municipality, of the Diocese of Cienfuegos-Trinidad, where he would have been “transferred.”
The independent media Cuba DNAin a note dated September 23, 2019, notified that Hernández “He left the town church without leaving information about where to find him and without giving any explanation.”
“The young priest had signed a four-year contract for the Diocese of Cienfuegos and left before finishing it. The bishop of the Diocese, Domingo Oropesa Lorente – the only foreign prelate in Cuba – was informed of what happened and said that he himself would take care of the matter.reviews the note.
Other than, “for personal reasons”renounced consecrated life was Andy Vidal.
On September 11, 2023, it was reported that a couple from Camagüey were appointed administrators of the Diocesan House of La Merced, after the dismissal of Father Andy Vidal as Rector of the Pastoral Center.
According to the blog The Localit was the first time that the Diocesan House would be run by lay people, since it was instituted by Mons. Adolfo Rodríguez in 1990.
Rodríguez, first Archbishop of Camagüey, entrusted the Rectory to Father José Agustín Sarduy Marrero and was later succeeded by Wilfredo Pino, the priest Ernesto Pacheco, and concluding the list by Andy Vidal.
Priest Bladimir Navarro, born in Florida, arrived in Spain in 2019 to study a Master’s Degree in Morals at the San Dámaso Ecclesiastical University.
This former medical student decided to settle in the Iberian nation and founded the “Shelter” Project, which provides support to unaided Cubans who arrive in the European country.
Navarro spent nine years in the Santa Cruz del Sur municipality, after being ordained in Camagüey, the territory where Alien Cruz left.
Cruz, also a native of Florida, Camagüey, attended Adolescent Ministry in the Archdiocese of Camagüey and was parish priest of Guáimaro, before leaving Cuba.
He was one of the young Catholics who, on a stopover during the trip to World Youth Day (WYD) in Lisbon, Portugal, decided to leave the delegation and not return to Prison Island.
“I have accompanied some young people from my parish and other parishes in Cuba who are leaving for World Youth Day in Lisbon (…) When I left them at the airport I blessed them. I know that many will not return and what does it matter. What does it matter if they come back or not? If they stay it is not because they are bad or traitors. The evil is not in them. Evil is in the neighborhood, in the school, in the university, in the broken dreams, in the unleashed violence, in the Fear of the uncertain future, in not knowing what to do with so much love and so much grace in this land that has become infertile. and from which everyone flees”, wrote the Camagüey priest Lester Rafael Zayas.
More workers to the harvest
The priestly stampede that we summarize in this article is a reflection of the recent migratory wave in Cuba, which exceeds the figures of the historic Mariel exodus in 1980 and the rafters crisis in 1994.
The broken dreams, the unleashed violence and the fear of the uncertain future to which Father Lester refers in his post are some reasons for leaving the Homeland, just as professionals from different areas, doctors, athletes and people who long for a future have done. better future.
On February 2, 2024, the feast of the Virgin of Candelaria in Camagüey, priest José Rafael Grau Adán celebrated 53 years of priestly ordination with his brothers Francisco García “Paquito” and José Manuel García.
“Today our Diocesan Church suffers from a shortage of priests and Pastoral agents. Many communities are distant and lacking the necessary attention. Several very elderly priests. It is not a call to lamentation. “It is a call for a commitment,” expressed during the Mass of the patron saint’s day and added:
“I do not want to end without addressing all of us who are part of this Diocese. “Do not leave a day without asking the Lord of the harvest to send workers to his harvest, ask for Priestly and Religious, Deacons and Consecrated vocations.”
Michel Sabido, that layman we referred to above and who wanted to find the defective part for Father Grau’s car, replied:
“God willing, let us find the defective part for this very sad phenomenon. Before we went out to look for priests in the world for Camagüey and now it is the people of Camagüey who leave the Diocese. Let us pray for priestly vocations YES, but also for those who have the responsibility of caring for, accompanying and supporting their priests. Let us pray for the bishops, for the bishop of Camagüey, Mons Willy Pino, who will have to become a magician? God willing and willing to discover what is happening to his priests because he will know something, I say. In the end he is the spiritual Father and the priests are his children.
Editorial Cubans around the World
