Virgin of Charity unites all Cubans Catholics, Santeria followers, exiled and back on the island [Video]

EL COBRE – Ramon Nieblas fixed his tearful eyes on the small golden statue, a beloved icon of Cuba’s patron saint. Whispering, he asked the Virgin of Charity of Cobre for a miracle: Please save his sick son.

“I came to pray for his health,” said Nieblas, a Cuban living in Brazil who traveled thousands of miles to the basilica in eastern Cuba, a pilgrimage site nestled in the shadow of the Sierra Maestra mountains.

He sat in Mass, wrapping his arm around 26-year-old Hernando Nieblas, a physician undergoing treatment for leukemia. They were among the thousands who visit the shrine each year, seeking intercession from the Virgin Mary for their most desperate concerns and giving thanks for their blessings.

The Virgin of Charity has been crucial to Catholicism in Cuba, which repressed religious practice after becoming an atheist state following the 1959 revolution. It turned into a secular state in the …