Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino (18 October 1936 – 26 July 2019) was a Cuban prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Havana from 1981 to 2016. He was appointed to the College of Cardinals in 1994, the second Cuban to hold that distinction.

Early life and ordination

Ortega was born on 18 October 1936 in Jagüey Grande, Matanzas, Cuba. He studied for the priesthood at the Seminary of San Alberto Magno in Matanzas and at the Seminary of Foreign Missions in Laval, Quebec, Canada. He was ordained a priest on 2 August 1964 by Bishop José Domínguez Rodríguez of Matanzas. He was assigned to various parishes in the Diocese of Matanzas from 1964 to 1966. Ortega was imprisoned by the Communist government from 1966 to 1967. He chose as his episcopal motto Sufficit tibi gratia mea, meaning 'My grace is sufficient for you', taken from ().

He was appointed archbishop of Havana in 1981 and, on 26 November 1994, was made Cardinal Priest of Santi Aquila e Priscilla. He served as the president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba from 1988 to 1999 and again from 2001 to 2007.

Ortega y Alamino was one of the cardinal electors in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI

On 15 June 2013, Pope Francis named Cardinal Ortega y Alamino as his special envoy to the closing ceremony of the National Eucharistic Congress in El Salvador, scheduled for 11 August 2013. On 26 April 2016, Pope Francis accepted his resignation as archbishop.

Death

Ortega was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018. He died on 26 July 2019. Masses honoring the life of Ortega were held between 26 July and 28 July, and his funeral was held in the Havana Cathedral on 28 July. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and former president, and also then-Cuban Communist Party leader, Raúl Castro, did not attend, but sent bouquets of flowers.

Views

Ortega y Alamino was critical of both capitalism and communism. Like John Paul II, he urged his nation not to construct a post-communist future on the basis of hyper-capitalist principles. In 1998, he warned of the insidious influence in Cuba of a "species of American subculture that invades everything: It is a fashion, a conception of life." In September 1993 the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops, headed by Cardinal Ortega, published the message "El amor todo lo espera" ('Love endures all things'), extremely critical of the Cuban Communist government (for which he could have been imprisoned) and asking for a new direction of the country. In April 2010 he said that Cuba was in crisis.

Political activism

On 20 May 2010, , Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, and Cardinal Ortega met with Cuban President Raúl Castro to discuss issues concerning jailed political dissidents. Ortega said that there "will be a process and this process has to start with small steps and these steps will be made." The high-level meeting followed by a press conference was unusual.

During negotiations to renew diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, Cardinal Ortega, without public announcement, visited the White House and hand-delivered a letter from Pope Francis to President Obama.

References

  • Nancy San Martin, "From Enemy to Possible Pope", The Miami Herald, April 13, 2005