Seminary’s opening has support of Cuba
HAVANA – Cuban President Raul Castro joined an American archbishop and other Roman Catholic leaders Wednesday to open a national seminary on the outskirts of Havana, the first religious construction on the communist-run island in more than a half century.
The inauguration comes with the church’s profile in Cuba at a high after Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega helped negotiate the release of some 52 political prisoners jailed in a 2003 crackdown on dissent.
The cardinal had warm words for both Raul and his brother Fidel at the seminary’s opening, saying both had kept their word to lend the project official support.
“This promise was fulfilled faithfully, and in the name of the church I thank both the former president and the current president, Raul Castro, who honors us with his presence,” Ortega said. “This work has been able to count on state support through its conclusion.”
Castro’s presence at the function – and the fact that the seminary was built at all – sent a powerful message of just how much relations between the church and Cuba’s government have improved in recent years.
The complex of several buildings built around a modern pink chapel will serve as a center of religious learning for new Cuban priests. Cuba’s last seminary was taken over by the government in 1966 and ultimately turned into a police academy. After that, the church moved to a building in old Havana that was not big enough.
“An institution is born that is a continuation of (the old seminary),” said Eusebio Leal, Havana’s chief historian and the man credited with leading the drive to restore the city’s colonial center. “It brings together the same goals, promoting God and the fatherland.”
A U.S. delegation at the opening was led by Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami. In addition to the inauguration of the seminary, he and the other American clergymen planned to visit parishes and missions in Havana that are financed in part by a collection taken up each year in dioceses across the United States.