Another murdered priest in Cuba
Another Catholic priest has been found murdered in Cuba.
Second priest in five months found dead in Cuba
HAVANA (Reuters) - The Catholic Church said a Spanish priest was found dead in Cuba on Monday in the second suspected murder of a clergyman on the communist-run Caribbean island in five months.
The Church said in a statement the body of Father Mariano Arroyo Merino was found in a room of the parish where he worked in the Havana Bay neighborhood of Regla.
"The first reports indicate that the priest, of Spanish origin, was murdered," the statement said without giving details.
In February, another Spanish priest, Eduardo de la Fuente Serrano, 61, was found dead by the side of a road west of the capital. News reports said he had been stabbed to death.
There was nothing so far to indicate the two cases were related.
(Reporting by Jeff Franks; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
Makes you wonder just what is behind all of this -- coincidence, or something else?
Very sad. As much as one can criticize the hierarchy of the Cuban church for its engagement with the regime, rank and file priests often risk arrest/deportation to smuggle food and medicine to their parishoners. What's more they provide critical social services--support groups for the families of imprisoned Cubans, for example--in some of the toughest areas of Havana. The regime must be pissed they made this public.