Published Tuesday, December 18, 2001 in
The Miami Herald
Cuba's bishops lament divisions in families, call for unity
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Cuba's Roman Catholic bishops said Monday they are
saddened that many of the island's families are separated by divorce and exile
and called for family unity this holiday season.
In their annual Christmas message, the Conference of Catholic Bishops also
remembered the Cuban families affected by Hurricane Michelle, which tore across
the island in early November.
"There are so many families divided, separated by divorce,'' the
message said. "It is a minority of children and adolescents who can sit
down with mama and papa on the night of the 24th, Christmas Eve, to eat
Christmas dinner.''
The bishops said they hoped Cuban children would learn the true meaning of
Christmas, "which is not just a day off from work or school, but a feast
day, the feast of the birth of Jesus.''
The message was distributed to the media Monday and will be read in Roman
Catholic churches during Mass on Sunday.
Cuba's communist government declared Christmas an official holiday once
again in 1998, fulfilling a request by Pope John Paul II, who made a historic
visit to the island in January of that year.
For many years under Fidel Castro's government, Dec. 25 was just another day
on the calendar.
Cuba was officially atheist from the early 1960s until 1992, and religious
believers were banned from the party, the military and several professions.
Since the collapse of Cuba's Soviet bloc allies, however, officials have
softened their approach toward organized religion. Catholics and other believers
in 1991 were granted permission to join the Communist Party.
In recent years, Cubans have especially embraced the secular trimmings of
Christmas, usually by placing small artificial holiday trees with blinking
lights in their living rooms as early as late November.
But most of the commercialism of Christmas so common in much of the world is
unknown here, where advertising is rare and families do not have the money to
buy expensive presents.
Cubans celebrate Christmas simply with a family meal on Dec. 24th and the
few devout believers attend a midnight Mass.
The most important holiday in Cuba is still the night of Dec. 31, celebrated
both as New Year's Eve and the eve of the triumph of the 1959 revolution that
brought Castro to power.
The bishops also took note of families with relatives who left the country. "For
not a few this will be the first year that a brother, a daughter, a grandchild,
a husband or a mother are absent.
"For many others, this is an old experience that they have never grown
used to,'' the bishops added.
Hialeah couple found slain in Cuba
By Elaine De Valle. edevalle@herald.com
A Hialeah couple who flew to Cuba to visit relatives was found slain Monday
on the highway between Havana and Santa Clara -- along with their daughter,
8-year-old grandson and a friend, the couple's grieving family said.
"What we know is not a lot,'' said the couple's son, Osmani Placencia,
of Hialeah. "The only thing we have confirmed is that five people have been
killed.''
His parents -- Ada Lorenzo, 52, and Celedonio Placencia, 60 -- left Miami
International Airport about 4 p.m. Sunday, he said. They were going to visit his
paternal grandmother, who is gravely ill, Placencia said.
"I never spoke to them again,'' he said.
Placencia, 32, said they were picked up at José Martí
International Airport by family friend Domingo Delgado. He took the couple's
daughter, Yailen Placencia, and their grandson, Daniel Osmani Placencia, along
for the ride.
All five were found dead on the side of the road after relatives in Santa
Clara -- wondering why they had not returned the night before -- set out to find
them Monday, said Placencia, a rafter who left Cuba in 1994.
"They all had been shot or stabbed,'' he said. "It doesn't look
like a robbery because there were still personal items on them.''
But his wife, Ileana Atucha, said information from friends and family on the
island was coming in bits and pieces.
"At first they said that nothing was taken,'' Atucha said. "But
somebody else told us afterward that everything was gone.''
A cousin in Cuba, Maritza Hernandez, told them that the police provided few
details. "Just that they were assaulted, that they had bullet wounds and
stab wounds,'' she said.
Atucha said her in-laws were not carrying huge sums of money. "They
took what's normal . . . what they were taking to family and friends.''
That included $120 that Osmani Placencia had sent to his son, Daniel, one of
the victims.
"The boy wanted gears for his bike and Osmani told him it would be
better to send him money because his grandmother did not want to carry the
weight of the gears,'' Atucha said. "He was excited about getting a new
bike.''
The couple, who had planned to stay for 15 days, also took medicine,
bathrobes and sheets for the sick matriarch, as well as new clothes and shoes
for the boy.
Atucha said that the family wants the couple to be buried in their native
Cuba. "Why bring them back now?''
But the hospital in Matanzas -- near where the abandoned car and bodies were
found at kilometer 114 on the Ocho Vias highway -- would not release the bodies
until the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., gave instructions, Atucha
said.
The Herald called the hospital for further information late Monday night,
but there was no answer. No one could be reached at the Cuban Interests Section
or the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
