On the occasion of the upcoming feast of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, the priest Alberto Reyes Pías published this Saturday on Facebook the 173rd installment of his weekly column "He estado pensando," titled "I've been thinking about what country to ask the Virgin for", a text structured as a prayer that reflects on the significant wounds of present-day Cuba and asks the patroness to support the people amid the crisis.
The parish priest of the church in Esmeralda, Camagüey, begins his reflection by acknowledging the role of the Virgin in national identity: "In the hearts of most Cubans, whether they are on the island or abroad, there is a place for the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, the one whose image arrived floating to our shores, the one who, by choosing her name for us, offered us an identity as a nation: to be children of Charity."
From that premise, Reyes Pías constructs a plea that spans the realities afflicting the island: scarcity and poverty, institutional indifference, rising violence, repression, educational decline, mass emigration, family disintegration, moral confusion, and uncertainty about the country's future.
The most politically direct passage calls out the regime without naming it: “Amid so much repression, help us maintain the courage to tell the truth, to refuse to play along with those who oppress us, to express in every peaceful way possible our thirst for freedom and our desire to take ownership of our present and our future.”
Regarding the migration crisis, which left a negative balance of 245,264 people in Cuba in 2025, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the priest implores: "In the midst of so much emigration and family separation, help us so that our distant and broken families may find a way to reunite."
The column arrives as the regime's repression reaches record levels. The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights recorded 1,949 repressive actions in the first half of 2026, while Prisoners Defenders counted 1,327 political prisoners at the end of July, including minors.
Delivery 173 is part of a sustained sequence of critical columns that the priest has been publishing since 2020. The previous week, in delivery 172, Reyes defined those who suppress in Cuba as individuals "incapable of thinking for themselves," relying on the thoughts of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In mid-August, in delivery 170, he directed a direct message to military and state agents, warning them that "a people cannot be chained forever." And on July 31, in delivery 168, he maintained that the cry of the Cuban people "is not for assistance; it is for radical change, it is for the end of the chains."
That sustained voice comes at a price. In January 2026, State Security summoned Reyes Pías along with priest Castor José Álvarez Devesa and issued a warning notice under the threat of legal action due to their public criticisms. Despite this pressure, the parish priest has not interrupted his column or moderated his tone.
The reflection for this Saturday comes in the days leading up to the liturgical feast of September 8, when the Catholic Church celebrates Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.
Reyes Pías concludes his prayer with an image of hope that contrasts with the present he describes throughout the text: “help us to trust that, when this time of shadows and suffering has passed, a time of spring and light will come upon this earth, a time of more laughter and fewer tears, a time of more abundance and less precariousness, a time of more justice and less fear, a time where we can live in peace, in freedom, and in truth.”
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