Mercedes Hernandez Valdez is a volunteer with Caritas Cubana and runs a soup kitchen in San Agustin parish in Havana. CRS works in Cuba through Caritas Cubana to tend the needs of the most vulnerable. Photo by Robyn Fieser/CRS

By Robyn Fieser

With 18 percent of its 11 million people over the age of 60, Cuba is the country in Latin America with the second largest concentration of elderly people.

That is due in part to the country’s health care system and longer life expectancies, low birth rates, and a good amount of emigration without the counterbalancing immigration. In other words, while plenty of people leave Cuba, most of them younger. There isn’t a lot of immigration into the country to take their place. Meanwhile, the population is getting older and living longer.

For more than 20 years, Caritas Cubana has made it a priority to help care for Cuba’s elderly, who tend to be poor and marginalized. Some 7,000 volunteers throughout the country’s 11 dioceses work together to make life a little easier for older people, many of whom live alone and struggle to make ends meet on the small pensions they receive.
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By Robin Fieser

The Pope arrives in Havana on Tuesday and the old city’s cobblestone streets are teeming with camera-toting tourists eagerly awaiting his arrival. Hotel lobbies are bustling, restaurants are hopping, and a fleet of 1950s American cars cruises up and down Havana’s main streets shuttling tourists from one sight to the next.

Far from the tourist center is A La Mar, an urban enclave created in the early 1960s for supporters of the revolution. A La Mar was originally designed as a new city for the “new man” of the revolution, based on communist and atheist ideas. Today, it is a “bedroom community” with no jobs, no services, bad transportation and widespread poverty, said Father Isidro Hoyos.

Our friends from Caritas Cubana took me there this weekend to show me a program for people with Down syndrome. Each Saturday for three hours, 18 children with Down syndrome and their families — mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers — meet at Father Hoyos’ parish house in A La Mar to share their experiences and learn from one another.
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By, Bishop Gerald Kicanas, Chair, Catholic Relief Services’ Board of Directors

Later this month, I have the privilege of traveling with several other brother bishops from the United States to join our Holy Father on his visit to Cuba. Pope Benedict XVI follows in the footsteps of his predecessor John Paul II, the first pontiff to visit Cuba, in 1998. This time, Our Holy Father comes to Cuba as a “Pilgrim of Charity” to celebrate with the Church in Cuba the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the image of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.

Pope Benedict is reaching out to an often isolated island nation that has a history of discord with our country. His presence in Cuba will send a message that we are all one human family, called to live in peace, despite our political differences.
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Father Eustache Nobime, Caritas Coordinator for the Diocese of Abomey in Benin, stands outside Ouidah’s Basilica where Pope Benedict XVI signed His latest Apostolic Exhortation. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS

By Helen Blakesley,

Here in Benin, the roads have re-opened, the banners are down, you could say “the Pope has left the building”.

But for one Catholic priest, working in the Diocese of Abomey, 2 hours north of the capital Cotonou, “out of sight” is certainly not “out of mind”.

Father Eustache Nobimè is Diocesan Coordinator for Catholic Relief Services’ partner organization Caritas. He’s been a priest for 11 years. And this was his first Papal sighting. Father Eustache got closer than most – he met Pope Benedict in the small coastal town of Ouidah when His Holiness came to speak to members of West Africa’s oldest seminary, Saint Gall.
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With great awe and reverence, Catholic Relief Services rejoices at the news that Pope John Paul II will be beatified this coming May 1. During his Papacy, Pope John Paul embraced the poor, challenged despots and extended an olive branch to people of all faiths. He was servant of God and champion of human dignity.

CRS was blessed by Pope John Paul’s visit to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1995. Thousands of bright red and yellow CRS banners greeted Pope John Paul as he rolled into Oriole Park at Camden Yards to celebrate mass on October 8. Addressing CRS and our mission was an integral part of the Pope’s visit to Maryland. In a proclamation presented to agency executives, the Pontiff said, “Catholic Relief Services is known for the effective and innovative programs of assistance which it sponsors throughout the world.”
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January 1 is the World Day of Peace. The following are excerpts from Pope Benedict’s annual message:

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, THE PATH TO PEACE

At the beginning of the new year I offer good wishes to each and all for serenity and prosperity, but especially for peace. Sadly, the year now ending has again been marked by persecution, discrimination, terrible acts of violence and religious intolerance.
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From the Vatican Information Services blog:

After the prayer of Regina Coeli in the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo, the Pope expressed his condolences to the Polish nation for the tragic plane accident of Saturday, in which the President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other high officials of the State and the military, lost their lives.

Read the full post here.

Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s World Day of Peace message:

If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation:

The environment must be seen as God’s gift to all people, and the use we make of it entails a shared responsibility for all humanity, especially the poor and future generations. (2)
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Our present crises – be they economic, food-related, environmental or social – are ultimately also moral crises, and all of them are interrelated. They require us to rethink the path which we are travelling together. Specifically, they call for a lifestyle marked by sobriety and solidarity, with new rules and forms of engagement, one which focuses confidently and courageously on strategies that actually work, while decisively rejecting those that have failed. (5)
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From Pope Benedict XVI’s World Day of Peace message:

At the beginning of this New Year, I wish to offer heartfelt greetings of peace to all Christian communities, international leaders, and people of good will throughout the world. For this XLIII World Day of Peace I have chosen the theme: If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. Respect for creation is of immense consequence, not least because “creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works”, and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind.

Read the full text of Pope Benedict’s message.

From the Vatican News Service:

At the end of today’s general audience, the Holy Father recalled the fact that Friday 20 November marks the United Nations Day of Prayer and Action for Children, called to mark the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“My thoughts go”, said Benedict XVI, “to all the children of the world, especially those who live in difficult conditions, and suffer because of violence, abuse, sickness, war or hunger.

“I invite you to join my prayers. At the same time I make an appeal to the international community to increase its efforts to offer an adequate response to the dramatic problems of infancy. May a generous commitment on everyone’s part not be lacking, so that the rights of children may be recognized and their dignity given ever greater respect”.