The Cuban priest Lester Zayas has assured that he knows that the Holy Week procession of his church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Vedado (Havana), was suspended because some people in the Cuban Government are bothered that he addresses the situation of the country in its masses. "They consider my homilies dangerous," he said instatements to the BBC.

At 45 years old, Father Lester Zayas sees it as "absurd" that they have prohibited him from taking out the Holy Burial procession (Good Friday).) which the Catholic community of Vedado had been doing for 11 years, despite having requested the corresponding permit. Already at that time, the priest explained that the cancellation was due to his homilies not being liked.

For this reason, in a writing on Facebook, the priest considered that denying the procession from leaving because the regime does not like the priest is a collective punishment of the believers of his parish, in a country where religious freedom is guaranteed in the Constitution.

In response to the comments that his superiors sent him about the fear that his homilies arouse, Father Lester Zayas clarified that he has never wanted to engage in politics from the pulpit.

In this sense, he declared that he had never made use of the religious space to call for an action “other than piety,” which is why he confessed not understanding “the fears that could have led to the refusal of the procession. “As a priest and adult man who knows the laws and the current Constitution of the Republic, I know what is allowed and what is not,” he wrote.

In the interview given to the British public broadcaster, the parish priest also assured that he could limit himself to talking about the Bible in his masses, but "the Gospel and Jesus Christ take us directly to Earth, to come into contact with people," he said. .

In his opinion, it is very difficult to be a priest and ignore the situation that the people of Cuba are experiencing.

Special resonance had the mass he gave on the occasion of the day of Charity of Cobre, when asked what has been done wrong so that this year there are 250,000 fewer voices in the country, alluding to the immigration scare.

The priest asked himself “what have we done wrong so that the planes that leave for Nicaragua all leave marked with the same characteristic, it is a one-way trip, the backpacks of those who travel say so.”

A mass he gave at Christmas also had a lot of impact, when he asked himself what he should say to a people that lives in darkness and hopelessness. Immediately afterwards, he clarified that he is not "a political priest" and that such pretensions are far from his interests, but he could not avoid touching on hard issues of Cuban reality in his homily.because it is in the real where God is found.

Also in Camagüey

Something similar has happened in Esmeralda, Camagüey, to Father Alberto Reyes, who suspended the procession of San José, the patron saint of his parish, on March 19,because the Government did not approve the itinerary that he had proposed and, in his opinion, that is an attack on religious freedom on the Island.

"We have decided that there will not be a procession because it would be a way of saying 'nothing is happening', and it is not true. Religious freedom is a right, it is not a favor, it is not something that is 'benignly granted to us' and that we should be grateful for." "said parish priest Alberto Reyes on his Facebook wall.