Cuba: ACN gives 250,000 rosaries for Pope's visit

ACN rosary for Cuba

Aid to the Church in Need has provided 250,000 rosaries for the faithful in Cuba to mark Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the island which begins today (Monday 26 March). ACN also gave 250,000 leaflets explaining how to pray the Rosary, 15,000 children's rosary booklets and 10,000 'prayer boxes' containing a rosary ring, a small bottle of holy water, a pocket crucifix and basic prayers.

Underlining the importance of providing help to support Catholic evangelisation in Cuba, Ulrich Kny, coordinator of Aid to the Church in Need's projects in Latin America, said the Church was still recovering from decades where people were not free to practise their faith.

In the 1960s, Fidel Castro's regime seized Catholic churches, schools, hospitals and other buildings and expelled hundreds of priests and religious.

He added: "The Cuban Church still suffers from the consequences of this painful experience. For this reason, Cuba remains a priority for Aid to the Church in Need."

The three-day visit of Pope Benedict XVI marks the 400th anniversary of the discovery of statue of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre (Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre).

The small wooden figure was found in 1612 by three young men, looking for salt in the Bay of Nipe in the north-east of the country, and brought to Cobre. From there, devotion to the Virgin spread over the island and today she is venerated as the country's patron saint. The rosaries provided by Aid to the Church in Need contain an image of Our Lady of Cobre.

Of the 250,000 rosaries, 100,000 have been given to the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba, home to the shrine of El Cobre. Another 60,000 rosaries went to Archdiocese of Havana, where Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate the closing Mass of his pilgrimage. The remaining 90,000 have been distributed to the country's nine other dioceses.

The rosaries are being sold at a token price both at the shrine and in parishes. All funds raised will go towards renovation and expansion of the pilgrimage centre and shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre. About 500,000 people visit the pilgrimage centre in El Cobre each year.

Cuba has a population of about 11,242,000, of whom more than 60 percent are Catholic, although many of them do not regularly practise their faith.

Source: ACN