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Spanish colonial authorities neglected Cuba and the local church served as "a colonial backwater dumping ground for miscreant clerics". [5] The church also struggled with anti-clericalism in Cuba, further encouraged by the growth of Freemason circles and Protestant churches, many of them of anti-Catholic outlook. [5]
The Catholic Church body in Cuba is governed by the Cuban Bishops Conference. There are over six million Catholics - around 60.5% of the total population [3] - although only about 2% attend mass. [4] The country is divided into three archdioceses [5] and eleven dioceses.
Christianity has played an important role in Cuba's history. Cuba was discovered by Christopher Columbus a few days after he arrived to the New World in 1492. In 1511, colonization began when the Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar established the Catholic Church in Cuba with the early priest Fray Bartolomé de las Casas known commonly as "the Protector of the Indians". [1]
In 2010, the Catholic Church brokered a deal for Cuba’s government to release jailed dissidents, something that helped thaw relations with the U.S. during the presidency of Barack Obama.
According to a 2004 estimate, there were a total of 3.9 million people living within the confines of the diocese, 71.8% or 2.8 million of whom were Catholic. There were 49 diocesan priests and 62 religious priests, totaling 111 priests serving the faithful of the diocese. With these figures, there were approximately 25,225 Catholics per priest.
The Catholic Church in Cuba is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. The Catholic Church body in Cuba is governed by the Cuban Bishops Conference. In 2020, the Catholic population of Cuba is estimated at 53.7%. [27] The country is divided into eleven dioceses including three archdioceses. The ...
The Diocese of Matanzas is a Latin Church ecclesiastic territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Cuba. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of San Cristobal de la Habana. The diocese was erected 10 December 1912.
When Pope Francis visited Cuba, he reiterated the Catholic Church's stance on freedom of religion, urging the government to allow Cubans the "freedom, the means and the space" to exercise their faith, and he quoted Cuban national hero José Martí's stance against "dynasties", possibly a reference to the Castro brothers' hold on power (though a Vatican spokesman said the pontiff's words were ...