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Father Rogelio Deán Puerta, parish priest of El Cobre and Rector of the Basilica Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity, delivered a homily this Sunday with a strong pastoral and social focus, in which he called to build "those new realities we dream of, that new society we need," in a message that resonates directly with the crisis facing Cuba.
The priest used the Gospel of Matthew and the figure of the prophet Jeremiah as a guiding thread to reflect on collective fear, accumulated wounds, and the urgency to heal through love, in a homily shared by the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba via its social media channels.
Deán Puerta identified fear as one of the major obstacles of the current moment, but he specified that it is not fear itself that destroys, but rather the paralysis it causes: "What is really dangerous? Staying in fear, remaining in fear."
For the rector of Cobre, the deepest fear is "the fear of not loving," and he warned that those who believe that forgiveness or reconciliation makes them vulnerable are mistaken: it is precisely those attitudes that allow us to build something new.
The priest was straightforward in diagnosing the state of society: "Sometimes I believe that this society on a global level is destroyed because we do not tire of reacting from our limited humanity, from our wounds, and thus nothing good, nothing new will ever be built."
In response to that diagnosis, he proposed a solution that begins with personal healing: "We cannot heal a society if we do not first have the courage, the bravery to dare to heal ourselves, wherever we are. We heal ourselves, and our societies heal."
Deán Puerta also emphasized that any legitimate guidance must be based on love: "We need guidance, but guidance rooted in love. There are no positive and constructive guides in the church that do not have love as their foundation. Anything that aims to be built outside of love has nothing to do with Christ or his church."
This Sunday’s homily is part of a series of pastoral interventions from the Sanctuary of El Cobre that have increasingly candidly addressed the Cuban situation.
On June 14, the same priest described people as "buried alive, without light, without illusions, without dreams, without hope" and confessed that "his heart is torn" by the suffering of the people.
On May 31, Deán Puerta called for unity among Cubans with the phrase "understanding is urgent," and on May 17, the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García Ibáñez, stated from that same sanctuary that "Cuba has to change."
In January of this year, the Cuban bishops warned about the “risk of chaos and violence” if the crisis persists and called for structural, social, economic, and political reforms.
Dean Puerta concluded his homily by invoking the Virgin of Charity of Cobre—patroness of Cuba, whose image is housed in that sanctuary—as a model of someone who "knows of suffering" and who, "despite living through the great injustice of her son, his passion, and his cross, remained steadfast in love."
The priest's final message encapsulated the essence of his reflection: "Sometimes it is important to love without understanding. In God, not all answers can be found, but in God, all love is always present."
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