Cubans are often divided on many issues.
WorldA youth flies a kite outside the shrine of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre in El Cobre, Cuba, on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. The Vatican-recognized Virgin, venerated by Catholics and followers of Afro-Cuban Santeria traditions, is at the heart of Cuban identity, uniting compatriots from the Communist-run Caribbean island to those who were exiled or emigrated to the U.S. – Ramon Nieblas fixed his tearful eyes on the small golden statue, a beloved icon of Cuba’s patron saint.
“The Virgin is deeply entrenched in our culture,” said the Rev. Rogelio Puerta, the basilica’s parish priest who also has celebrated Mass at the sister shrine in Miami. “You can’t talk about Cuba without talking about the Virgin of Charity.” Fidel and Raul Castro’s mother once left a small golden figure of a guerrilla when her sons were fighting dictator Fulgencio Batista before the revolution. And Ernest Hemingway, who lived in Cuba for two decades, had a replica of his 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature placed at the Virgin’s feet to thank Cubans for inspiring “The Old Man and the Sea” and other works.
“They’re the ones who bless humanity – that’s why I believe in the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre and the great power of God,” he said.The Virgin of Charity of Cobre dates to 1612 when two Indigenous brothers, Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos, along with Juan Moreno, an enslaved African boy, are said to have found the statue of the Virgin holding the infant Jesus in the Bay of Nipe. It was floating on a wooden board inscribed with the words, “I am the Virgin of Charity,” according to the basilica.
Looking at the ocean separating him from his homeland, the Miami shrine’s vicar, the Rev. Angel Andrés González, sees how the Virgin has been “the connecting thread” of his life.Like many of the Cuban exiles who built, and still worship at, La Ermita, as the Miami shrine is known, González’s devotion to the Virgin preceded his Catholic faith – and anchors his life in the United States.
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