The San José procession in Camagüey is suspended after the regime tried to change the route

The priest Alberto Reyes, of the Catholic Church of Esmeralda, municipality of Camagüey, This Tuesday, he regretted that, as tradition dictates, Saint Joseph, his patron saint, was not able to go out in procession through the streets of the town despite having the authorization of the Office of Religious Affairs, which, although it gave approval to the religious parade, tried to impose an itinerary different from that requested by the parish. Hence, the priest has chosen to suspend the outing as a sign of disagreement with the interventionism of the State in an issue as sensitive as religious freedom.

"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.

In addition, he announced that this Tuesday afternoon, in Esmeralda they will have the mass in honor of San José, "with the added gift of the presence of our archbishop, Monsignor Wilfredo Pino Estévez."

Father Alberto Reyes has questioned religious freedom in Cuba on several occasions. "Many times I have been asked in public if there is religious freedom in Cuba. I maintain that there is not. In Cuba there is freedom of worship, but there is no religious freedom," he noted in the letter in which he announced the suspension of the procession of Saint Joseph.

"In Cuba the temples are open, the Eucharist can be celebrated in them, we can have Bibles, we can carry religious signs, we can give catechesis and catechumenate to adults." "But it is not allowed to build new temples and the reconstruction of those destroyed or in poor condition is hindered, access to the media is not allowed, nor to the educational system, nor to the health system, new religious denominations are not recognized. …and we cannot do anything outside the temples without express permission from the Office of Religious Affairs, the office that monitors and tries to control the life of the Church," he stressed.

In the opinion of the parish priest of Esmeralda, this Religious Affairs office, "to begin with, should not exist, because no one has the right to monitor anyone's religious life. Deciding for the Church what route a procession should take is hijacking freedom religious of this town," he insisted.

"Believers are part of society and we have the right to express our faith publicly and to decide where and when to express it," stressed Father Alberto Reyes, who promised that there will be a celebration of San José in Esmeralda and there we will pray for "our church and for all the town". "And we will also ask for the authorities, so that they can understand what respect for the freedom of others means, and so that the day comes soon when this people can be and feel free to express their soul and everything that from their soul. desires: his dreams, his ideals, his criteria, his faith," he concluded.

It is not the first time that Father Alberto Reyes denounces that the Cuban regime hinders the work of the Catholic Church in Cuba. In an interview given to Catholic televisionEWTN Spanish He denounced that the Office of Religious Affairs hinders his work as a parish priest. “It supervises us, it spies on us, it controls us, it tries to silence us because one of the mechanisms is, for example, trying to silence our voices through the bishops.”

The San José procession is not the first that the parish priest Alberto Reyes suspends in Esmeralda.In September the procession of the Virgin of Charity was also suspended. "If as a Church we cannot decide even the time of a procession, what can these people expect?" questioned the father and accused the regime of not respecting religious freedom.

For a Cuban who was not born in Camagüey it may be difficult to locate on the map where the municipality of Esmeralda is, but there was a time when this town enjoyed a powerful economic boom. In the first half of the 20th century, colonies of Americans were established in the area in La Gloria City and Germans in Palm City. The money came from the efforts of this thriving immigration, dedicated to the production and export of citrus. The decline began during World War II, when in the case of Palm City, some of the most solvent producers were imprisoned and transferred to Havana, accused of collaborating with the Nazis.

This March 19 is a holiday in several Spanish provinces, which celebrate San José as Father's Day.