Father Castor José Álvarez Devesa, the dissident Cuban priest who disappeared into Cuba’s strict “legal” system and suffered assaults for days after the nationwide protests of July 11, 2021, is urging Cubans to embrace the social lessons of Jesus as a path to freedom from Communism.
In a lengthy interview with the independent Cuba.net news outlet published on Thursday, Alvarez spoke about his path to becoming a priest, the relationship between the Gospels and anti-Communist ideology, and the consequences he faced in his private life for openly opposing the Castro regime.
The priest, based in the eastern province of Camagüey, is one of many members of Cuba’s Catholic Church who have played a key role in organizing and supporting the anti-Communist opposition movement. Cuba’s Communist Party, like its counterparts in other parts of the world, is officially an atheist organization and violently suppresses all major faiths. But the late dictator Fidel Castro took particularly violent action to silence Christians, forcibly eliminating Christians including Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists. Labor Camps In the 1960s, he worked with suspected homosexuals, political dissidents, artists, and other “counter-revolutionaries.”
A major reason for the persecution was that Christians were the most vocal opponents of Communism from the early days of the revolution: priests participated in the failed anti-Communist attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy abandoned his allies. Nuns and deacons have long been key players in counter-revolutionary activities.
Current dictator Raul Castro has ostensibly repaired ties with the Vatican, even joking with Pope Francis during a visit in 2015 that he might convert to Catholicism. But for Cuban Catholics, far from the opulent enclaves of the Holy See, repression and persecution have been the norm for decades, with little meaningful intervention from the Vatican.
Pope Francis is received by Cuban President Raul Castro at José Marti International Airport in Havana on February 12, 2016. (ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP via Getty)
“The message of Christ also inspires society, so that we can be happy and live in peace, justice and freedom,” Father Alvarez told Cubanet. “I think it is very important for people to understand that the Gospel of Christ also helps to save us from evil in our homeland, in society, in the state and in politics. And if we follow Christ, it affects a better economy, a better family, and every aspect of society.”
“I want to explain more clearly that the Gospel of Christ can illuminate society and bring us much peace and joy,” Alvarez said.
The Catholic priest said he had opposed the Communist Party from a young age and enrolled in university to study mathematics but was eventually shunned because “university was a place for revolutionaries.”
“I was suspended indefinitely for expressing ideas that were against the ideals of the revolution,” he recalled. He told Cuban media that he enrolled in the seminary because he felt a calling in a moment that required him to end a relationship with his girlfriend and reflect on what it meant to enter the priesthood.
“I think the Virgin Mary lifted her heart so she didn’t have a heart attack,” Alvarez said, recalling the time he told his boyfriend he was interested in the priesthood.
Alvarez was famously one of an estimated 187,000 people who rallied in the streets of Cuba’s major cities on July 11, 2021, to call for an end to the communist regime. He had been missing for nearly a week, emerging with a large head wound. Reports later said he had been killed by communist thugs. beat They hit him with a baseball bat.
Alvarez Celebrated That year, he will have been in the priesthood for 20 years.
“How do I leave them? It’s like a father looks at his children and says: ‘Well, how do I leave them?'” he told Cuba.net about his decision to protest that day. “As a result, they beat me, injured me, put me in solitary confinement at night and then put me under warning measures that forbid me from leaving the country. [I needed] Permission to leave the city [could] Leave your home only when necessary.”
“I wasn’t at home,” he said, “I said I was going out. I just told Jesus that people were looking for him, and Jesus said, ‘Tell them I’m going to keep working.’ I kept working.”
Alvarez told Cuba.net that he has been living under full regime surveillance since the incident, which came after he became increasingly militant in his public statements against communism.
“The result is that you live with the knowledge that you are under constant surveillance, that persecution is taking away all the potential you should have,” the priest explained, acknowledging that the persecution has made you a better priest: “Because you are under total surveillance, you have had to improve yourself when it comes to preaching the Gospel.”
Far from being successful, the violent crackdown on July 11, 2021 led to an outbreak of anti-regime activity on the island. Human rights groups recorded around 4,000 anti-communist protests in Cuba in 2022, and in 2023 that number was Over 5,700.
A man is arrested during a demonstration against the government of President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana on July 11, 2021. Thousands of Cubans took part in a rare demonstration against the communist government on Sunday, marching through the city chanting “Down with the dictatorship” and “We want freedom.” (Yamil Raj/AFP via Getty)
Father Alvarez told Cuba.net that he plans to continue speaking out against the abuses of the communist regime.
“We must make clear to the Cuban authorities the truth of what their people are experiencing and the role they are playing in stifling their freedoms,” Alvarez said, adding that he would continue to call on people to prayer and explain the Church’s social doctrine, which offers a blueprint for moving away from communism.
