Cuba makes Good Friday an official holiday

Cuba makes Good Friday an official holiday
Published April 15, 2014EFE
Cuba has now made Good Friday an official national holiday after
restoring that Catholic feast as an "exceptional" measure when Pope
Benedict XVI visited the island in 2012.

The new Labor Code, passed by the National Assembly in December,
established Good Friday as a holiday "every year," Communist Party daily
Granma said Tuesday.

Since the new regulation will take effect in June, the Labor and Social
Security Ministry issued a special ruilng to make this Friday a day off
work.

The first Good Friday that Cuba celebrated in decades was on April 6,
2012, following a request made by Benedict XVI to President Raul Castro
during his March 26-28 visit to the island.

In 2013, the government maintained the holiday but without mentioning
that the reason for it was to celebrate Good Friday.

Benedict's request brought continuity to what was started by his
predecessor, John Paul II, on the visit he made to Cuba in 1998, when he
persuaded Fidel Castro to make Christmas a holiday again.

Separately, the Cuban Catholic Church announced that national state
television will broadcast Wednesday a depiction of the Passion that took
place in the Havana Cathedral.

Last year, state television aired live the Good Friday service
officiated by Cardinal Jaime Ortega in Havana Cathedral.

After the victory of Fidel Castro's Revolution en 1959, relations
between the Cuban regime and the Catholic Church were marked by tension
over the expulsion of priests and the suppression of religious celebrations.

The historic visit of Juan Pablo II in 1998 began a new phase of
detente, but it was during the presidency of Raul Castro - Fidel's
younger brother - when relations visibly improved.

In 2010, Gen. Castro opened an unprecedented dialogue with the Catholic
hierarchy that led to a process of freeing political prisoners.

In Cuba, Holy Week coincides this year with a school holiday
commemorating Fidel Castro's defeat of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. EFE

Source: Cuba makes Good Friday an official holiday | Fox News Latino -
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/04/15/cuba-makes-good-friday-official-holiday/