Pope’s Jubilee message inspires Cuban government to release 553 prisoners

The Cuban government has announced that it will release 553 prisoners in honour of the 2025 Jubilee year and Pope Francis’s accompanying message about governments “restoring hope”. In a statement dated 14 January, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “President [Miguel] Díaz-Canel sent a letter to the supreme pontiff in which, in the spirit of the The post Pope’s Jubilee message inspires Cuban government to release 553 prisoners first appeared on Catholic Herald. The post Pope’s Jubilee message inspires Cuban government to release 553 prisoners appeared first on Catholic Herald.

Jan 17, 2025 - 04:00

Pope’s Jubilee message inspires Cuban government to release 553 prisoners

The Cuban government has announced that it will release 553 prisoners in honour of the 2025 Jubilee year and Pope Francis’s accompanying message about governments “restoring hope”.

In a statement dated 14 January, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said:

“President [Miguel] Díaz-Canel sent a letter to the supreme pontiff in which, in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025 declared by His Holiness and which has just begun, he communicated the decision to benefit by granting freedom to 553 people sanctioned in due process for various crimes established by law.”

The statement from the Cuban government, reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA), highlights Pope Francis’s call to release prisoners during the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, which the pontiff expressed when he initiated the Jubilee on 24 December at the Vatican.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel and Italian Cardinal Beniamino Stella attend a ceremony at the University of Havana marking the 25th anniversary of the first visit of Pope John Paul II to the island nation, Havana, Cuba, 8 February 2023 (Photo by ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP via Getty Images)

In his papal bull Spes Non Confundit to convoke the Jubilee year, the Pope proposed that “governments undertake initiatives aimed at restoring hope, forms of amnesty or pardon meant to help individuals regain confidence in themselves and in society”.

The statement from the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs goes on to note that “as part of the close and smooth relations with the Vatican state, the Cuban government has maintained communication with Pope Francis and his representatives and, as in the past, has informed His Holiness about processes of review and release of persons deprived of liberty”.

This has led, according to the statement, to the release between 2023 and 2024 of “more than 10,000 people sentenced to deprivation of liberty”.

The statement also recalls a meeting in June 2023 between President Díaz-Canel and Pope Francis, preceded by another with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla in August 2022.

The prisoners now marked for early release “will receive their respective benefits gradually”, notes the statement.

The actions of the Cuban government follow the recent decision by US President Joe Biden on 23 December to commute the death sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row, to life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Shortly before taking that decision, the outgoing US president spoke with the Pope by telephone earlier in December 2024.

Pope Francis has regularly spoken out, along with many US Catholics, against the use of the death penalty.

He did so most recently on 9 January in his annual speech to members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, and in which he also reiterated the plight of prisoners around the world.

Photo: Pope Francis presides over Christmas Eve Mass at St Peter’s Basilica, which included a special ceremony launching Jubilee 2025, Vatican, Vatican City State, 24 December 2024. The Jubilee is a year of Catholic celebrations set to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome. (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images.)