Pope Benedict XVI will likely announce that the Rev. Felix Varela, who struggled for Cuba’s independence from Spain, has been put on the road to sainthood when he visits the island next month, according to a Catholic news service. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of the Saints will meet March 6 to consider making Varela a “venerable,” according to a dispatch from Rome by Zenit, an independent Catholic news agency based in New York City.
One proven miracle is necessary for Varela’s beatification, and a second one for his canonization, or sainthood.
Zenit reported that Rodolfo Meroli, a member of the De La Salle Brothers who is in charge of the Varela nomination, would only confirm the Congregation will discuss the case when its 20 or so member cardinals and bishops meet.
No special ceremony is needed and Benedict could simply announce the approval when he visits Cuba March 26-28 to mark the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the statue of Our Lady of Charity, who is venerated as Cuba’s patron saint.
“Declaring Felix Varela as a venerable could awaken a lot of enthusiasm on the island, which would be in addition to the fervor sparked by the pilgrimage” of a replica statue of the virgin, which was carried from one end of the island to the other over the past year, Zenit said.
Varela is revered in Cuba and abroad for his struggle against Spanish colonial rule and slavery and his role in establishing the island education system during the early part of the 19th century.
Cubans have a saying that he “is the one who taught us how to think.”
Born in Havana in 1788 and ordained a priest at the age of 23, he taught philosophy and sciences for many years at the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary in the capital before he joined the struggle for independence.
Sentenced to death by Spanish courts, he migrated to New York, where he ministered to the waves of poor Irish and other migrants then arriving at the docks. A church in what is now Chinatown bears a plaque on its red brick façade showing that he served there.
Varela died in St. Augustine in 1853. After Cuba became an independent nation, his remains were transferred to the Aula Magna, the main meeting hall of the University of Havana.
Havana dissident Oswaldo Payá and his Christian Liberation Movement used his name in 1998 to brand a campaign that collected 25,000 signatures demanding a referendum on the island’s communist system.
And in 1997 about 500 spectators, many of them Cuban-Americans, cheered in St. Augustine as the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a new 32-cent stamp bearing Varela’s image. It was the first U.S. stamp to feature a Cuba native.
Among the special guests were Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega and Monsignor Agustin Roman, then auxiliary bishop of Miami.
“Varela was to the poor in New York what Mother Teresa was to the poor in Calcutta,” Miami lawyer Jorge Sosa, who fought to get the stamp, declared during a later ceremony in Miami to unveil the stamp.