Homily pronounced in the Eucharistic Celebration in the Archdiocese of Havana
January 25, 1998

1. Today is one day consecrated to our God: Don't make bereavement neither cry (Ne, 8, 9). With great joy I preside over the Holy Mass in José Marti Square, in Sunday, day of the Lord. That should be dedicated to the rest, to praying and the family coexistence. The Word of God summons us to grow in the faith and to celebrate the presence of the one Resuscitated amid us that have been baptized in oneself Spirit to form a single body (1Co 12,13), Christ's mystic Body that is the Church. Jesus Christ unites to all those baptized. Of Him the fraternal love flows among the Cuban Catholics as among those that live in any other part, because they are Body of Christ and each one is a member" (1Co 12, 27). The Church in Cuba, because, it is not alone neither isolated, but rather it is part of the universal Church extended by the whole world.

2. I greet with affection to the Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Shepherd of this Archdiocese, and I thank him the kind words with those that, to the beginning of this celebration, it has presented me the realities and the aspirations that mark the life of this ecclesiastic community. I greet the Gentlemen Cardinals also here present, come from different places, as well as to all my siblings Bishops from Cuba and of other Countries that have wanted to participate in this solemn celebration. I greet the priests cordially, religious men and women, and to the faithful ones gathered in so great number. To each one I assure you my affection and proximity in the Lord...

I also thank the presence of the civil authorities that have wanted to be here today and I thank them by the borrowed cooperation.

3. The Spirit of the Lord. It is on me, because He has anointed me. He has sent me to announce the Gospel (Lc 4, 18). All minister of God has to make his in his life these words that Jesus pronounced in Nazareth. For that reason, when being among you I want to give you the good news of the hope in God. As servant of the Gospel I bring you this message of love and solidarity that Jesus Christ, with his coming, offers to the men of all the times. It is not an ideology at all, neither of a new economic or political system, but of a way to peace, justice and true freedom.

4. The ideological and economic systems that have left frequently happening in the last two centuries have increased the confrontation like method, since they contained in their programs the germs of the opposition and of the disunion. This conditioned their conception of the man and their relationships deeply with the other ones. Some of those systems have also sought to reduce the religion to the merely individual sphere, robbing her of all influence or social relevance. In this sense, it is necessary to remember that a modern State cannot make of the atheism or of the religion one of its political classifications. The State, far from all fanaticism or extreme secularism, should promote a serene social climate and an appropriate legislation that allow each person and each religious confession to live his/her faith freely, to express it in the environments of the public life and to have the means and enough spaces to contribute to the national life his/her spiritual, moral and civic wealth.

On the other hand, it resurges in several places a form of capitalist Neo-Liberalism that subordinates the human person and conditions the development of the peoples to the blind forces of the market, burdening from its centers of power to the less favored countries with unbearable loads. This way, in occasions, it is imposed to the nations, like conditions to receive new help, untenable economic programs. This way, it assists, in the concert from the nations to the exaggerated enrichment from some few ones on the expense of the growing impoverishment of many, so that the rich ones are more and more rich, and the poor more and more poor.

5. Dear siblings: the Church is a teacher in humanity. For that reason, in front of these systems, it presents the culture of the love and of the life, returning the humanity the hope in the transformer power of the love lived in the unity wanted by Christ. For there it is to travel an on the way to reconciliation, of dialogue and of the neighbor's fraternal welcome, of all neighbor.

The Church, when carrying out its mission, proposes to the world a new justice, the justice of the Kingdom of God (cf. Mt 6, 33). In diverse occasions I have referred to the social topics. It is necessary to continue speaking of it while in the world there is an injustice, for small that is, because otherwise the Church would not be faithful to the mission trusted by Jesus Christ. It is in game the man, the concrete person. Although the times and the circumstances change, there is always who need of the voice of the Church, so that his/her anguishes, his/her pains, and his/her miseries are recognized. Those that are in these circumstances can be sure that they won't be defrauded, because the Church is with them and the Pope hugs with the heart and with his word of encouragement to all that that suffers the injustice.

Jesus' teachings conserve entire their vigor to the doors of the year 2000. They are valid for all of you, my dear siblings. In the search of the justice of the Kingdom we cannot stop before difficulties and incomprehension. If the invitation of the Teacher to the justice, to the service and the love is welcomed as Good New, then the heart gets wider, the approaches transform and the culture is born of the love and of the life. This is the great change that the society needs and waits, and it will only be able to reach, if first, the conversion of the heart of each one doesn't take place, as condition for the necessary changes in the structures of the society.

6. The Spirit of the Lord. has sent me to announce to the captive ones the freedom... to give freedom to the oppressed ones (Lc 4, 18). Jesus' good news goes accompanied by an announcement of freedom, leaning on the solid foundation of the truth: If they stay in my Word, they will truly be my pupils, and they will know the truth and the truth will make them free (Jn 8, 31-32). The truth to which Jesus refers is not only the intellectual understanding of the reality, but the truth on the man and his transcendent condition, have more than enough his rights and duties, on his greatness and his limits. It is the same true that Jesus proclaimed with his life, reaffirmed before Pilate and, with his silence, before Herodes; it is the same one that took it to the saving cross and his glorious resurrection.

The freedom that is not founded in the truth, conditions in such a way to the man, that sometimes makes, him object and not subject of its social, cultural, economic and political environment, leaving him almost without any initiative for his personal development. Other times, that freedom is of individualistic mood and, when not keeping in mind the freedom of the other ones, it locks the man in its selfishness. The conquest of the freedom in the responsibility is an indispensable task for all people. For the Christians, the freedom of the children of God is not only a gift and a task, but rather to reach it, supposes an invaluable testimony and a genuine contribution in the way to the liberation of the whole mankind.

This liberation doesn't decrease to the social and political aspects, but rather finds its fullness in the exercise of the freedom of conscience, base and foundation of the other human rights.

For many of the effective political and economic systems today, the biggest challenge continues being conjugating freedom and social justice, freedom and solidarity, without any is relegated to an inferior plane. In this sense, the Social Doctrine of the Church is a reflection and proposal effort that tries to illuminate, and to reconcile the relationships between each man's inalienable rights and the social demands, so that the person reaches his/her deeper aspirations and his/her integral realization, according to his/her condition of son of God and of citizen. Reason by which, the Catholic Secular Education should contribute to this realization by means of the application of the social teachings of the Church in the diverse atmospheres, open to all the men of good will.

7. In the gospel proclaimed today, the justice appears intimately bound to the truth. It is also seen this way in the lucid thought of the parents of the Homeland. The Servant of God Father Félix Varela, encouraged by his Christian faith and his fidelity to the priestly ministry, it sowed in the heart of the Cuban people the seeds of the justice and the freedom that he dreamt, to see flourish in a free and independent Cuba.

José Marti's doctrine about the love among all the men has roots deeply evangelical, overcoming this way the false conflict among the faith in God ,and the love and service to the Homeland. This eminent person writes: Pure, disinterested, pursued, martyred, poetic and simple, the religion of the Nazareno seduced all the honest men... All people need to be religious. It is not only essentially it, but rather for their utility it should be it... An irreligious people will die, because nothing in it feeds the virtue. The human injustices displease of her; it is necessary that the celestial justice guarantees it.

As you know, Cuba has a Christian soul, and that has taken it to have a universal vocation. Called to conquer the isolation, it must open up to the world and the world should come closer to Cuba, to its people, to its children that are without a doubt its biggest wealth. (This is the hour of undertaking the new roads that demand the times of renovation that we live, when coming closer the Third millennium of the Christian era!

8. Dear siblings: God has blessed to this town with true founders of the national, clear conscience and faithful exponents of the Christian faith, as the most valuable support in the virtue and of the love. Today the Bishops, with the priests, religious men and women and faithful lay, they make an effort in spreading bridges to bring near, the minds and the hearts, propitiating and consolidating the peace, preparing the civilization of the love and of the justice. I am amid you as messenger of the truth and the hope. For that reason I want to repeat my call to be allowed to illuminate for Jesus Christ, to accept without reservations the splendor of his truth, so that all can undertake the way to the unity by means of the love and the solidarity, avoiding the exclusion, the isolation and the confrontation that are contrary to the will of the God-love.

That the Holy Spirit illuminates with its gifts to those who have diverse responsibilities on this people that I take in the heart. And that the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, Queen from Cuba, obtain for her children the gifts of the peace, of the progress and of the happiness.