La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre :: Our Lady of Charity South Florida

La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre One of the primary unifying forces of the Cuban community in South Florida is La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, or Our Lady of Charity. In 1898, after Cuba won its independence from Spain, she became the official patroness of the island. The Cuban soldiers credited their victory to the Virgin's intervention in their crusade for independence. The Virgin is seen as a religious tradition that strongly unites Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits. In South Florida, Cubans throughout the United States gather each year to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Charity on September the eighth. Alongside the traditional Catholic service, many within the exile congregation offer their hopes and prayers, to the Virgin, for a Cuba free from communism. Though Cuba is where the celebration of La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre originated, each year, her statue, which was smuggled out of Cuba in 1961, is ferried by boat to Miami Marine Stadium. The reason for smuggling the statue, a scant two years after Fidel's revolution, was because the Catholic religion was not allowed to be openly practiced within Cuba. In recent years, a mass has been celebrated to honor La Virgen at the Hialeah racetrack. Taking all these South Florida celebrations into account, one could say that the Virgin plays an important role in the lives of many Cuban men and women who make the journey from Cuba to the free shores of the Florida coastline. They rely on her for protection and guidance while journeying across the Caribbean Sea. La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre as well as La Ermita de la Caridad del Cobre, the church that was constructed in her honor, have both become important Cuban cultural landmarks. Built along a stretch of Biscayne Bay, her shrine was completed with the donations of newly arrived Cuban exiles. The $420,000 raised helped pay for the construction costs. La Ermita can be seen as a unifying force for the Cuban population in South Florida; with the entire community contributing to the construction and maintenance of this site, she belongs to everyone.