Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Catholic church's top official in Havana and a promoter of closer ties with the United States, will be leaving the post, the Vatican announced Tuesday.
Pope Francis accepted his retirement, shortly before Ortega is to turn 80, the Vatican said in a statement.
The Cuban-born cardinal has been seen as a practical figure in Cuba's slow and painful post-Cold War life.
The church, long outlawed, is now the only non-state organization active in the Americas' only Communist run one-party state.
Ortega in 2010 appealed to President Raul Castro -- who in 2006 replaced his ailing brother Fidel at Cuba's helm -- and the mediation helped lead to the release of 130 dissidents. It also ushered in closer cooperation between the government and the church.
The cardinal, respected for his discretion, also worked as an intermediary for Pope Francis in the process of negotiating the end of over five decades of bad blood between Cuba and the United States.
Washington and Havana announced they would begin normalizing relations in December 2014, and diplomatic ties were in fact restored last year.
Cuba's opening to the West is also proving to be a gradual one, reflecting Raul Castro's caution as the island undergoes a transition to a new generation of Communist leaders after more than 55 years under the Castro brothers.
Faced with grave economic distress and clinging to Soviet-style economic strategy, Havana increasingly has shown openness to having the Church help tend to growing ranks of senior citizens.
But in this country of over 11 million, the local church for example still has no normal media of its own.
Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Catholic church’s top official in Havana and a promoter of closer ties with the United States, will be leaving the post, the Vatican announced Tuesday.
Pope Francis accepted his retirement, shortly before Ortega is to turn 80, the Vatican said in a statement.
The Cuban-born cardinal has been seen as a practical figure in Cuba’s slow and painful post-Cold War life.
The church, long outlawed, is now the only non-state organization active in the Americas’ only Communist run one-party state.
Ortega in 2010 appealed to President Raul Castro — who in 2006 replaced his ailing brother Fidel at Cuba’s helm — and the mediation helped lead to the release of 130 dissidents. It also ushered in closer cooperation between the government and the church.
The cardinal, respected for his discretion, also worked as an intermediary for Pope Francis in the process of negotiating the end of over five decades of bad blood between Cuba and the United States.
Washington and Havana announced they would begin normalizing relations in December 2014, and diplomatic ties were in fact restored last year.
Cuba’s opening to the West is also proving to be a gradual one, reflecting Raul Castro’s caution as the island undergoes a transition to a new generation of Communist leaders after more than 55 years under the Castro brothers.
Faced with grave economic distress and clinging to Soviet-style economic strategy, Havana increasingly has shown openness to having the Church help tend to growing ranks of senior citizens.
But in this country of over 11 million, the local church for example still has no normal media of its own.
