The Cuban government announced the release of 553 prisoners after the mediation of Pope Francis “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025.”
“President (Miguel) Díaz-Canel addressed a letter to the Supreme Pontiff in which, in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025 declared by His Holiness and which has just begun, he communicated the decision to benefit with the granting freedom to 553 people sanctioned in due process for various crimes contemplated in the law,” said one declaration from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated January 14.
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Cuba’s statement refers to Pope Francis’ call to release prisoners in this Jubilee of Hope 2025, which began on December 24 in the Vatican.
In that call, included in the Hope does not confuse the bull with which he called the Jubilee Year, the Pope proposed to the governments of the world to take on “initiatives that restore hope; forms of amnesty or remission of punishment aimed at helping people to regain confidence in themselves and in society.”
The statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry recalls that “as part of the close and fluid relations with the Vatican State, the government of Cuba has remained in communication with Pope Francis and his representatives and, as in the past, has informed His Sanctity on review processes and release of people deprived of liberty”, which has led, according to the declaration, to the fact that between 2023 and 2024 “more than 10 thousand people punished with deprivation of liberty were released.”
The statement also recalls a June 2023 meeting between Cuban President Díaz-Canel and Pope Francis, preceded by another with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, in August 2022.
ACI Prensa contacted Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican Press Office, to request a statement regarding the Cuban government’s announcement, but has not received a response as of the time of publication of this article.
Almudena Martínez-Bordiú, ACI Prensa correspondent in Europe, contributed to this article.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.