The father Ariel Suárez, parish priest of the Church of Charity in Havana, issued a call in defense of the Cuban people, demanding that their well-being be prioritized over any other interest, describing the daily life of Cubans as "a calvary."
"I always say the same thing, to look at the Cuban people, to see the everyday Cuban, who I like to refer to, who is suffering, who is facing many needs, who endures a daily calvary, and that please, they should place the well-being and happiness of that people above any other interest," the priest stated in a video shared on social media.
Father Suárez, who also serves as the deputy secretary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba (COCC), is one of the most recognized voices of the Catholic Church on the island.
His words add to a series of increasingly forceful statements from the Cuban ecclesiastical hierarchy throughout 2026, amid an economic, energy, and social crisis that the bishops themselves describe as one of the most serious in decades.
In interviews with Vatican News and CELAM earlier this year, Father Suárez himself had already described the situation in Cuba as "frankly difficult," marked by resource shortages, an energy crisis, and impoverishment, and he affirmed that "the people yearn for a dignified and happy life in this land."
On January 31, the COCC issued a statement in which it called for urgent structural changes and warned of the risk of "social chaos" if spaces for dialogue are not created, with the motto "no more bloodshed or mourning in Cuban families."
In February, the bishop of Santa Clara, Arturo González Amador, declared from the altar that "Cuba needs to change, the way we are living is not human."
The crisis reached such an extreme that in February, the lack of fuel prevented most Cuban bishops from traveling to the Vatican for the ad limina visit, and in April, the shortage began to affect the distribution of humanitarian aid from the Church itself.
On May 17, the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García Ibáñez, reiterated from El Cobre that "Cuba needs to change" and that measures must be adopted to alter the country's situation.
This more critical and public stance of the Church contrasts with decades of greater institutional caution towards the regime, and is part of a tradition of statements that intensified following the protests of July 11, 2021.
The voice of Father Suárez echoes from the Basilica of Charity, the patroness of Cuba, with a demand that the ecclesiastical hierarchy repeats with increasing urgency: that those in positions of power regarding the island's destiny finally pay attention to the everyday Cuban.
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