On the occasion of the upcoming celebration of the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, the priest Alberto Reyes Pías published this Saturday on Facebook the 173rd installment of his weekly column, titled «I have been thinking about which country to ask the Virgin for», a text structured as a prayer in which he reflects on the deep 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, began his reflection by acknowledging the place the Virgin holds in national identity: "In the heart of most Cubans, whether they are on the island or abroad, there is a space 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."
Based on that premise, Reyes Pías constructs a plea that encompasses 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 direct passage politically addresses the regime without naming it: "In the midst of so much repression, help us to maintain the courage to speak the truth, to not play into the hands of those who oppress us, to demonstrate in every possible peaceful way our thirst for freedom and our desire to be masters of our present and our future."
Regarding the migration crisis, which resulted in a net loss of 245,264 people in Cuba in 2025, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the priest urged: "In the midst of so much emigration and family separation, help us so that our distant and broken families can find a way to reunite."
The reflection of Reyes Pías arrives at a time when the regime's repression reaches record levels. The Cuban Human Rights Observatory recorded 1,949 repressive actions in the first half of 2026, while Prisoners Defenders documented 1,327 political prisoners at the end of July, including minors.
The 173rd installment of the weekly column "I've Been Thinking" is part of a sustained sequence of critical texts that the priest has been publishing since 2020. The previous week, Reyes described those who repress in Cuba as individuals "unable to think for themselves," drawing on the thoughts of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
In mid-August, in delivery 170, he directed a direct message to military personnel and state agents warning them that "a people cannot be chained forever." And on July 31, in his column number 168, he argued that the cry of the Cuban people "is not for assistance, it is for radical change, it is for the end of chains."
That sustained voice comes at a cost. Last January, State Security summoned Reyes Pías along with priest Castor José Álvarez Devesa and issued them a warning record under the threat of legal prosecution for their public criticisms. Despite that pressure, the parish priest has not halted his column nor softened his tone.
The reflection for this Saturday occurs in the days leading up to the liturgical feast of September 8, a date 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 passes, a time of spring and light will come upon this land, 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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