September 8: Feast Day for Cachita and 27th anniversary of Christian Liberation Movement’s founding
“Today, 27 yearsago,my parentswith a groupoffriends foundedthe Christian Liberation Movementcongratulations to all.” – Rosa María Payá, over twitter on September 8, 2015
Jesús Mustafá Felipe at Solemn Mass for Our Lady of Charity
Today is the Feast Day for Cachita, Our Lady of Charity. In Miami, thousands of Cuban exiles gathered at the University of Miami’s Bank United Center in prayer in a Solemn Mass presided over by Archbishop Thomas Wenski and broadcast around the world on EWTN and to Cuba over Radio/TV Marti. In Cuba, 140 Cubans were arrested to stop them celebrating the Feast Day at Mass at the Lady of Caridad del Cobre Church in Eastern Cuba. Other reports of repression and detentions have been reported.
Today also marks the 27th anniversary of the formation of the Christian Liberation Movement that began a new phase of nonviolent civic struggle for national reconciliation in Cuba. The Christian Liberation Movement emerged out of a Catholic lay movement in a Catholic parish in Havana’s neighborhood of El Cerro.