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Published: Monday, 29 July 2019 08:53

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Photo: TrabajadoresHavana, July 29.- Floral offerings by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, and Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, accompanied the honor today funeral of Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, who died last Friday in this capital, at 82 years of age, after a long battle with cancer.

The funeral Mass was held in a packed Cathedral in Havana, attended by Salvador Valdés Mesa, First Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers; Esteban Lazo Hernández, President of the National Assembly of Popular Power; and Roberto Morales Ojeda, Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers, all members of the Political Bureau.

To dismiss Cardinal Ortega Alamino, there were also other Party and Government leaders and representatives of religious organizations and Cuban civil society, as well as ecclesiastical authorities from other countries, including Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, USA

At the ceremony, Monsignor Jean Francois Simonart, in charge of business of the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana, read the message of Pope Francis, sent through a telegram by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The Supreme Pontiff thus expressed his deepest condolences and paternal closeness to the relatives of the deceased, as well as to the clergy and the faithful of the Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de La Habana.

The homily in this funeral Mass in suffrage for the eternal rest of Cardinal Ortega Alamino, was in charge of the current Archbishop of Havana, Monsignor Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, who made a semblance of the faithful pastor and celebrated and thanked as a gift his life and inspired and exemplary priesthood.

De Ortega Alamino spoke as a thinker, creator, friend of culture, and stressed that he was a pontiff, because that word means who builds bridges and that was done by Cardinal Jaime to try to get those who were on different banks - geographical, religious, philosophical or policies- will meet for mutual knowledge and dialogue.

And it is that known is the significant contribution that the fluidity of relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban State provided by the Archbishop Emeritus of San Cristóbal de La Habana, who was also the bearer of letters of Pope Francis to the presidents Raúl Castro Ruz and Barack Obama, as a contribution to the restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States.

Of present body, dressed in the red chasuble, the ring, the miter and the staff, all cardinal symbols, the Cardinal was veiled for three days, before his mortal remains were placed this afternoon in a coffin, which remained on the floor, before the altar and with the Gospels on top during this Holy Mass.

Concluded the ceremony, the coffin was taken outside the Cathedral by the Bishops of Cuba in the midst of an endless save of applause, the ringing of the bells and religious songs, emotional farewell and a final greeting to which he was host to the three Popes who They have visited the Greater Antilla: Juan Pablo II (1998), Benedict XVI (2012) and Francisco (2015).

Since his parish was for a long time and after five in the afternoon this Sunday, he left the funeral procession heading to the Christopher Columbus necropolis, in the Cuban capital, for burial, in the Pantheon of the Bishops. (Trabajadores)