By Orlando Oramas Leon on March 12, 2020
Catholic and Anglican churches from the United States are in favor of normalizing relations with Cuba, according to statements by its dignitaries in their recent visit to the island. “The Cuban and American people expect bridges instead of walls, awaiting reconciliation,” said the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, concluding a recent five-day visit to Cuba.
He was invited by the bishops of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, who held a ¨warm meeting¨, according to the president on Twitter.
Cardinal Dolan reflected that “nations often form alliances for trade and war, but it is important to join together because of health.” His comments came as he visited the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), created in 1999 by President Fidel Castro, to produce medical professionals, mainly for Third World nations.
He met with young people from his country who, on completing their studies, will take home a degree in Medical Sciences and practice in communities of need. The Archbishop praised ELAM as, “a benchmark of solidarity and humanism that is in line with the preaching of the Church, it is a biblical example of values and solidarity.” He finished his visited to the largest medical training school in the world by writing in the guestbook, “I am impressed by the noble effort for the health of the world. May Jesus, the divine physician, bless you.”
As part of his activities in Cuba, the prelate celebrated several masses, including one in the Basilica of the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre in Santiago de Cuba, and the Metropolitan Cathedral in Havana, he also toured the almost tercentenary University of Havana.
At the University, Dolan told the press that it was “a difficult journey,” referring to bans on flights to Cuba, imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump.
Soon after Bishop Michael Curry, president of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the African American to hold the position, arrived to the island and declared that religious institution, which brings together millions of faithful “is and will remain” against the policy of blockade that for almost that has been unilaterally exercised by Washington for 60 years. “Since 1991 we adopted that position and we have expressed this many times to the Government and Congress, and we will continue to do so,” he said in an interview at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, in the neighborhood of Vedado, Havana.
He argued that this is a position in line with the Christian preaching of loving one another and he went on to say that the Episcopal Church calls for the restoration of relations between the two countries.