The Cuban priest Alfredo Petit Vergel, who was bishop of Havana, died on Saturday in the parish of San Francisco de Paula at the age of 85.
"A few minutes ago, Monsignor Alfredo V. Petit Vergel, 85 years old, about to turn 60 in the priesthood and 30 in the episcopate, just passed away," the San Julián de los Güines parish, located in the Güines municipality, in Artemisa.
Monsignor Petit was born in Havana in 1936. During his childhood and adolescence he studied at the College of the Brothers of the Christian Schools before entering the El Buen Pastor Seminary, where he graduated in Humanities and Philosophy.
In 1961 he received the habits, after graduating in Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University of the Pio Latin American College in Rome, Italy. When he died he was close to completing 60 years of priesthood and 30 years of the episcopacy.
After being ordained he returned to his homeland, where he was appointed as parish priest in several churches in Havana: in the Cathedral, in the church of the Sacred Heart, located in Vedado, and in El Salvador del Mundo, located in the Cerro municipality, since where he served the parish of Nueva Gerona, on the Isle of Youth.
He was also pastor in the San Francisco de Paula parish, in La Víbora, and in the Santa Teresita chapel, in the Santa Amalia neighborhood, in Arroyo Naranjo.
Petit was also a professor at the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary, where he taught the subject of Canon Law, and chaplain at the San Francisco de Paula Hospital.
"Those of us who had the good fortune to count him among his teachers echo his professionalism and high cultural flight. In each class shift, education and instruction went hand in hand, a wealth of wisdom that in a masterful and entertaining way penetrated not only in the knowledge of the seminarians but also in the hearts of future pastors," commented a priest on the Facebook wall of the San Julián de los Güines parish.
Father Petit was named Titular Bishop of Buslacena and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Havana by Pope John Paul II in 1991.
A year later he was consecrated bishop in the Havana Cathedral by Monsignor Jaime Ortega Alamino, Archbishop of Havana.
His funeral will be this Sunday at 2:00 in the afternoon.
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