Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Pinar del Rio (Agenzia Fides) - The Cuban Catholic Church will be able to build a new place of worship on the island, which will be the first time since the revolution, in 1959. According to the information of the Archdiocese of Havana, sent to Agenzia Fides, the place chosen is a town in the western province of Pinar del Río.
The new church will be dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and will occupy an area of 200 square meters in the center of Sandino, the largest town in the province, and will accommodate about 200 people seated, as announced by the Bishop of the diocese of Pinar del Río, His Exc. Mgr. Jorge Enrique Serpa Pérez. According to data of the Archdiocese of Havana, 60% of the Cuban population (11.1 million inhabitants) is Catholic, and there are 650 churches, 340 priests and 600 religious on the island.
The authorization for the construction of the new church had been given on September 9, 2014, which thanks to the improvement in relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban government, led to the authorization to carry out public processions, to declare Good Friday a holiday and broadcast the message of Cardinal Ortega on television (see Fides 03/04/2012) and the return of some places of worship to the Church that had been expropriated (see Fides 26/01/2013).
The construction of new places of worship is one of the requests of the Catholic Church, which seeks to recover the space needed to carry out its mission of evangelization. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 11/03/2015)
