The Archbishop of San Juan Roberto González Nieves urged Puerto Rico’s priests, parishes and religious to assist the Cuban Church.
Dioceses in Puerto Rico and Panama dispatched thousands of communion wafers to the Catholic Church in Cuba after a crisis in local production caused by drastic power cuts.
“Due to the lack of electricity, we are unable to produce the hosts,” announced the nuns who for decades have prepared the hosts used in Cuba’s 304 parishes.
In a statement, the Discalced Carmelite Mothers of the St Teresa and St Joseph in El Vedado, central Havana, said that available reserves of communion hosts would be rationed to try and supply the demand.
The Dominican Fr George Payano told AFP the nuns sometimes had only “two hours of electricity” a day to operate communion wafer presses.
Upon learning of the shortage, the Archbishop of San Juan Roberto González Nieves urged Puerto Rico’s priests, parishes and religious to assist the Cuban Church.
Many of the 300,000 hosts Nieves sent to Cuba were made by the Dominican Sisters of the Mother of God Monastery in Manatí, on the north coast of Puerto Rico.
The Archbishop of Havana Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez personally received the Puerto Rican shipments.
Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Panama José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta sent a further 35,000 hosts to Cuba, made by the Sisters of the Monastery of the Visitation.
The shipment was transported for free by air and received by Fr José M. Araya, parish priest of the Church of the Miraculous Medal in Guanabacoa, eastern Havana.
In a letter accompanying the shipment, Archbishop Mendieta observed: “The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. Around the same Bread of Life, we recognise ourselves as brothers and members of one Body. Therefore, when a community lacks what is necessary to celebrate this mystery, we feel the evangelical duty to reach out and accompany them.”
This current shortage marks the second occasion in less than five years that the Carmelites in Cuba have had to cease or limit production. In 2022, they did so because a flour shortage.
Cuba is currently enduring one of its worst energy crises in recent history, with blackouts lasting more than 20 hours in some areas.
In May, Bishop Arturo González Amador of Santa Clara, president of the Cuban Bishops’ Conference said that that the country was going through “the most difficult and sad time I am aware of in the history of my people”.
“Everything is a fight to survive,” he said.