Jaime Ortega

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Jaime Cardinal Ortega with US Secretary of State John Kerry (not in the picture, August 2015)
Cardinal coat of arms

Jaime Lucas Cardinal Ortega y Alamino (born October 18, 1936 in Jagüey Grande , † July 26, 2019 in Havana ) was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church . He was Archbishop of Havana from 1981 to 2016 and thus the highest-ranking official within the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba .

Life

Jaime Ortega Alamino was born in Jagüey Grande in the diocese and province of Matanzas, the son of a shopkeeper and a housewife. After finishing state school, he first completed a degree with an artistic and scientific focus. In 1956 he entered the seminary of his home diocese, which was led by Canadian missionaries . He studied Catholic theology , philosophy and ethics in Matanzas and Québec . In August 1964 he received the sacrament of ordination in the Cathedral of Matanzas from Bishop José Maximino Eusebio Domínguez y Rodríguez .

He then worked for two years as a vicar in the community pastoral care , before he was imprisoned for eight months in a labor camp (UMAP) for religious and homosexual young men in 1966 . After his release in 1967 he turned down the possibility of emigrating to Spain that his father had given him and was appointed parish chaplain in his native city of Jagüey Grande, where he had to look after several parishes and churches because of the shortage of priests in Cuba . In 1969 his bishop appointed him pastor of the cathedral of Matanzas and diocesan youth minister . Ortega founded a church youth movement and developed numerous activities for young people such as summer camps and drama groups. He also taught moral theology in the Havana seminary .

Bishop of Pinar del Río

On December 4, 1978 he was appointed Bishop of Pinar del Río by Pope John Paul II . The outgoing pro-nuncio in Cuba, Archbishop Mario Tagliaferri , donated his episcopal ordination on January 14 of the following year. Co- consecrators were the Archbishop of Havana , Francisco Ricardo Oves Fernández , and the Bishop of Matanzas, José Maximino Eusebio Domínguez y Rodríguez.

Archbishop of Havana

On November 21, 1981, Ortega was finally appointed Archbishop of Havana. He founded numerous new parishes, created a diocesan council, rebuilt destroyed churches and built conference and retreat houses for priests and lay people . As Archbishop of Havana, he was also committed to lively youth work. In 1991 he founded Caritas for the Archdiocese of Havana, from which the national Cáritas Cuba emerged , and Ortega acts as its president. The Cáritas Cuba , which is subordinate to the Catholic Bishops' Conference, is the first officially recognized non-governmental organization in Cuba since the Cuban Revolution. Although church representatives were not given a platform on Cuba's public radio and television, Ortega achieved great fame and many followers because he wrote courageous articles in the archdiocese's monthly newspaper, Palabra Nueva ("New Word"), which he founded and which also spoke about the borders of Cuba also received a lot of attention.

cardinal

Pope John Paul II accepted Ortega on November 26, 1994 as a cardinal priest with the titular church Santi Aquila e Priscilla in the college of cardinals . This was the first and so far only appointment of a Cuban cardinal since the Cuban Revolution of 1959 . Ortega was a member of the Congregation for the Clergy and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America . As a cardinal with voting rights, he was a participant in the 2005 conclave and 2013 conclave at the Vatican.

At the age of 75, Ortega submitted to Pope Benedict XVI in autumn 2011 . submitted his resignation from the office of Archbishop of Havana. However, he remained in office until his successor was named in April 2016. On April 26, 2016, Pope Francis accepted his age-related resignation.

Ortega succumbed to the effects of pancreatic cancer diagnosed a few months earlier.

Leadership role within the church and civil society

From 1988 to 1998 and again from 2001 to 2004 Ortega was chairman of the Cuban Catholic Bishops' Conference. He was instrumental in organizing the two visits to Cuba by Pope John Paul II in January 1998 and by Pope Benedict XVI. involved in March 2012. Under his leadership, the Catholic Church of Cuba succeeded in considerably improving its position within the country and relations with the state. Nonetheless, Ortega on several occasions clearly criticized the government led by the Communist Party of Cuba under Fidel and (since 2008) Raúl Castro: in 1989 he criticized the controversial executions of the popular general Arnaldo Ochoa, who had been convicted of drug trafficking, and other high-ranking military officers. A pastoral letter from the Bishops' Conference, which was written under Ortega's leadership and which was read out by all Catholic pulpits in September 1993 and distributed in church publications, provoked severe rejection by the official media. In 1994 he called on the government to investigate the sinking of a tug hijacked by people who wanted to escape, in which 40 people had died. In 1995 he accused both the Cuban and US governments of treating the Cubans as mere objects of their political struggle. In 2003 he called on the Cuban government to abandon its hard-hand policy. In April 2010, Ortega warned the Cuban government in an article to swiftly implement reforms that the whole country urgently expected.

In the following months, direct talks between Ortega and President Raúl Castro initially led to a restriction of physical attacks, intimidation and hindrances (so-called “ Actos de Repudio ”) on the opposition group Women in White . After further negotiations with the involvement of the Spanish government, the early release of all 55 remaining political prisoners of the wave of arrests of the " Black Spring " of 2003 was announced in July 2010 , which the government implemented gradually by March 2011. For his mediating role, Ortega was criticized by parts of the Cuban opposition - both within the island and in exile - for being too indulgent towards the government, but also received a lot of approval. In the spring of 2012, following Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Cuba, Ortega faced particularly sustained criticism from opposition Cubans inside and outside of Cuba, who accused him of increasing closeness to President Raúl Castro. The Cuban head of the US state broadcaster Radio and TV Martí , which is aimed at the Cuban population , accused Ortega of a " lackluster attitude" in a published comment in May 2012 . In July 2012, Ortega held the funeral service for the opposition member Oswaldo Payá, who had recently died in a mysterious traffic accident .

Ortega promised to continue working for political prisoners. He had recently received hundreds of letters asking for support for the release of prisoners, but these were only normal criminal cases and not political offenses. So that he can take action, he needs appropriate information.

In December 2014, Cardinal Ortega played a key role in mediating between Cuban President Raúl Castro and his US counterpart Barack Obama .

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jaime Lucas Cardinal Ortega y Alamino in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  2. ↑ nouns di Membri e nella conferme Congregation for the Clergy. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office , June 9, 2014, accessed July 27, 2019 (Italian).
  3. ^ Nomina di Consigliere e Nomina di Membro nella Pontificia Commissione per l'America Latina. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, February 28, 2011, accessed July 31, 2019 (Italian).
  4. ^ Conferme e Nomina nella Pontificia Commissione per l'America Latina. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, January 15, 2014, accessed July 31, 2019 (Italian).
  5. ↑ www.vatican.va: ELENCO DEGLI EM.MI CARDINALI CHE ENTRANO IN CONCLAVE (German for example: 'List of cardinals who move into the conclave)
  6. ^ Juan O. Tamayo: Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega leaves a church leadership panel. The Miami Herald , November 16, 2013, archived from the original July 17, 2014 ; accessed on December 22, 2016 (English).
  7. ^ Rinuncia dell'Arcivescovo Metropolita di San Cristóbal de La Habana (Cuba) e nomina del nuovo Arcivescovo Metropolita. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office , April 26, 2016, accessed April 26, 2016 (Italian).
  8. ^ Pablo Alfonso: En estado grave el Cardenal cubano Jaime Ortega Alamino. RadioTelevisionMarti.com, June 23, 2019, accessed July 30, 2019 (Spanish).
  9. ↑ Nancy San Martin: From enemy to possible pope in: Miami Herald of April 13, 2005, accessed via LatinAmericanStudies.org on May 22, 2012 (English)
  10. ↑ Thomas Schmid: Always well balanced. In: Berliner Zeitung of April 21, 2010, accessed on December 7, 2013
  11. ↑ Tobias Buyer: Cuba's disappointed dissidents ( Memento from July 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) in: Domradio from May 6, 2012, accessed on May 22, 2012
  12. ↑ William Booth: US government's Radio and TV Marti call Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega a lackey in: Washington Post of May 6, 2012, accessed on May 22, 2012 (English)
  13. ↑ Tobias Buyer: The mysterious death of opposition leader Payá , in: Die Welt from August 1, 2012, accessed on September 19, 2012
  14. ↑ The interpretation of whether political or non-political prisoners are also very difficult. However, he does not know any political prisoners. Ortega wants to stand up for political prisoners in Cuba
  15. ↑ http://www.20minutos.com/noticia/b82079/visita-papal-a-cuba-busca-fomentar-el-dialogo/#xtor=AD-1&xts=513357
  16. ^ Pope Francis disappointed Cuban dissidents , Die Welt , September 21, 2015
  17. ↑ España condecora a cardenal cubano con la Orden de Isabel la Católica
predecessor Office successor
Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Rozas Bishop of Pinar del Río
1978–1981 		José Siro González Bacallao
Francisco Ricardo Oves Fernández Archbishop of San Cristóbal de la Habana
1981-2016 		Juan Cardinal García Rodríguez
personal data
SURNAME Ortega, Jaime
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ortega y Alamino, Jaime Lucas (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban clergyman, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and Archbishop Emeritus of Havana
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Jagüey Grande , Cuba
DATE OF DEATH 26th July 2019
Place of death Havana