Pope Leo XIV Receives Appeal in Favor of Cuba and Venezuela

A delegation from the Network of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity (REDH) delivered to Pope Leo XIV an appeal in favor of the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela, wounded by the United States, a report highlights today.

A note published by the newspaper Il Faro di Roma, signed by Luciano Vasapollo and Salvatore Izzo, members of the Italian chapter of REDH, states that during a meeting with the Supreme Pontiff held the previous day, they asked him "to pray for the Cuban people under siege, with an economic blockade that, from cruel, has become merciless."

The Holy Father, according to the report, listened with concern to the exposition on the "risk of a dramatic humanitarian crisis" facing the Caribbean nation, following the signing by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 29 of an executive order to prevent, through tariff threats, the shipment of oil to that country.

Both members of the aforementioned international anti-imperialist and solidarity movement also asked the Bishop of Rome "to pray for the people of Venezuela, wounded by the military attack of January 3," and also for its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores, "kidnapped and taken to the United States without any international legality."

"An absurd situation, we told the Pope, who agreed with us and assured us of his prayers for these intentions," Vasapollo and Izzo state, emphasizing that Leo XIV highlighted "the same affection and same participation, witnessed by the last post-conciliar pontiffs, for the sufferings of Latin America."

"Despite having been born in Chicago, Pope Prevost was for many years first a missionary and then a bishop in Peru, and continues to make his own the expectations of justice of the people entrusted to him," the renowned Italian intellectuals refer.

"We saw him very interested in the issues we raised and also well informed, confiding that he knows, for example, the associative reality of REDH that we mentioned," both activists add in their testimony about this transcendental contact with the leader of the Catholic Church.

It is "an openness that we believe can represent a favorable condition for spiritual, pastoral, and diplomatic action in support of the Bolivarian peoples," the activists assert, who delivered to Leo XIV the REDH appeal for him to remember in his prayer the grave sufferings of the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela.

"In a time marked by conflicts, violence, and oppression, we feel the need to invoke the spiritual strength of prayer so that justice, dialogue, and respect for people may prevail, beyond any political or ideological division," the text states.

"We are convinced that the voice of the Church, when it rises in defense of human dignity and peace, represents a sign of hope for peoples and nations," the document reaffirms.

It invokes Pope Leo XIV's "constant witness of attention to the most vulnerable, appeal to international legality, and promotion of peace," and expresses the hope that before these anachronistic and inhuman events, "paths of truth, reconciliation, and respect for fundamental rights may open."