The communist regime of Cuba banned Christians in Havana from celebrating the traditional Solemn Stations of the Cross on Sunday, Cuban outlets reported.
“We hereby inform that the Solemn Stations of the Cross announced and prepared by the Vicariate for tomorrow Palm Sunday at 6:00 p.m. from Linea to Lateran has been suspended because the authorities have not approved it,” Cuban priest Lester Rafael Zayas Díaz of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Vedado, Havana, announced on social media over the weekend.
Catholics commemorate the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ during Holy Week, an observance which will run this year from April 13 (Palm Sunday) to April 20 (Easter Sunday).
Palm Sunday’s celebrations, which commemorate the arrival of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem before he was crucified, involve the blessing and distribution of palm branches used to welcome Jesus Christ as he entered Jerusalem.
The Stations of the Cross that the Cuban communists prohibited the Vedado parish from celebrating is a Catholic procession that commemorates Jesus Christ’s last day on Earth prior to resurrection on Easter Sunday. Some Christians observe this practice on Good Friday, which marks the crucifixion of Jesus. Neither the Castro regime nor the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish has explained the reasons behind the prohibition of the procession in Vedado.
Last week, Father Zayas Díaz shared pictures of the procession’s rehearsal before it was canceled by the Castro regime. The procession is on the complete list of events that the Archdiocese of Havana planned for this year’s Holy Week in the Cuban capital.
Posted by Lester Rafael Zayas Díaz on Friday, April 11, 2025
Sunday’s prohibition marks the second year in a row that the Castro regime banned Catholics from celebrating Holy Week processions in the country. In 2024, the regime banned Christians in Havana and several other cities from celebrating that year’s Stations of the Cross and other Holy Week activities. Prior to the 2023 and 2024 prohibitions, Vedado’s Stations of the Cross procession was reportedly celebrated without interruption for over 11 years and had only been suspended due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
At the time the Castro regime prohibited 2024’s Holy Week processions, Father Zayas Díaz told the Catholic News Agency’s Spanish branch, ACI Prensa, that that the prohibition appeared to be motivated out of fear of possible peaceful anti-communist protests, such as those that took place in the cities Bayamo and Santiago de Cuba in March 2024.
The Madrid-based outlet Diario de Cuba reported on Sunday that Father Lester Rafael Zayas Díaz is a vocal critic of the Castro regime. During a September 2023 Mass, Zayas Díaz referred to Cuba’s ongoing severe humanitarian and migrant crisis that has pushed hundreds of thousands of Cubans to flee from communism. He also expressed concerns over Cubans fighting on behalf of Russia in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Zayas Díaz was one of the Catholic priests who reportedly supported Cubans during the historic July 2021 wave of anti-communism protests in Cuba.
“The request for the procession is not an initiative of the parish priest. It is the fruit of the desire of the parishioners and therefore of the people who want to publicly manifest their faith, want to bring the religion they profess to their neighborhoods, to their streets, to their homes, to their daily life. It is therefore a sovereign right of the Holy Faithful People of God,” Zayas Díaz said in a 2024 statement.
“To deny it as a punishment to a parish priest is, besides absurd, a violation of religious freedom. The parish priest is only the spokesman of the people’s desire. He is the one who requests it to the competent authority, but it is not his personal desire,” he continued.
In March, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report on the precarious state of religious freedom in Cuba and suggested that the government of the United States redesignate Cuba as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in acts of “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom” that occurred during 2024.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
