Pedro Claro Meurice Estiu
Pedro Claro Meurice estiu ( born February 23, 1932 in San Luis, Cuba, † 21 July, 2011 Miami, USA) was Roman Catholic Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba.
Life
Meurice studied philosophy and theology at the seminary in Virgin of Charity del Cobre and Havana, as well as at St. Thomas Aquinas - of - Seminar in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. After his ordination on June 26, 1955, he studied spirituality at Joaquin Goicoecheaundía at the seminary in Vitoria in Spain. From 1955 to 1958 he completed his doctoral studies in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. After various developments in France and Belgium, he returned to Santiago de Cuba and became vice - chancellor and secretary of the Archbishop Enrique Pérez Serantes. In 1963 he was appointed chancellor in 1966 and pastor of Vista Alegre, Santiago de Cuba.
Pope Paul VI. 1967 appointed him titular bishop of Teglata in Numidia and appointed him as Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago de Cuba. The episcopal ordination in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba donated him Archbishop Enrique Pérez Serantes; Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera were co-consecrators, Bishop of Camagüey, and Alfredo Ignacio Llaguno Canals, Auxiliary Bishop of San Cristobal de la Habana.
After the death of Archbishop Perez Serantes on 18 April 1968 he was appointed Vicar General and on 25 June of the same year by Pope Paul VI. appointed Apostolic Administrator of Santiago de Cuba. 1970, he was named Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba, in which Cuba's most popular Marian shrine of the Virgen de Caridad del Cobre is located. He was also the 1980/81 Administrator of the Archdiocese of Havana. In 1998, he hosted a visit by Pope John Paul II.
In 2007, his age-related resignation by Pope Benedict XVI. upheld, and was succeeded by Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez. Pedro Meurice suffered from diabetes and died in a hospital in Miami in the United States from a kidney failure.
Work
Archbishop Pedro Meurice estiu was considered a pillar of the Cuban Catholic Church and was a fierce critic of the regime of Fidel Castro.
" In the past Cuba visit of Pope John Paul II, he reached the then Prime Minister Fidel Castro at the beginning of a church service on 24 January 1998 public with harsh words to. In the presence of Fidel Castro's brother and successor Raul Castro later Meurice said the Cubans had to " demystify the false messiahs ," and complained a division of the people, by the exile. After the death of John Paul II in 2005 Fidel Castro took part in a guided Meurice funeral mass in Havana; while he explained the archbishop not nachzutragen the incident at the time. "
Therefore, the public criticism of the Archbishop was in particular is of particular importance, because not only the international media publicity on the Pope's visit took proportion, but the service was broadcast live on Cuban television in particular. The Cubans experienced country-wide for the first time since Fidel Castro had taken shortly after the revolution, all the media of the country under its full control, such as a Cuban criticized the President in front of the entire nation. The same opportunity presented itself Meurices successor García Ibáñez in March 2012, when he. Likewise the words of welcome for Pope Benedict XVI at the beginning of his service in Santiago de Cuba said: As García Ibáñez during his address to the historical words Meurices remembered, broke out among the more than 200,000 attendees spontaneously from the loudest applause of the evening.