Washington D.C., Aug 19, 2009 / 01:21 am
A delegation of three bishops from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is currently on a trip to Cuba to show their concern for the Church and to follow up on hurricane recovery efforts in the country. They hope their visit will help “unfreeze” tensions in U.S.-Cuba relations held over from the Cold War era.
The bishops of the delegation are Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Fla., and Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantu of San Antonio. According to a USCCB press release, they are being accompanied by Fr. Andrew Small, OMI, director of the Subcommittee for the Church in Latin America at the USCCB.
“Our main focus will be to follow up on the extraordinary grant awarded to the Church in Cuba after last year's hurricanes, Fr. Small explained. “We will be visiting those impacted areas and seeing what kind of clean up has taken place since last year and how else we might help the Church in Cuba.”
The Church in Cuba received over $860,000 in grants from the USCCB following Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The funds went to rebuild churches and parishes damaged by the storms.