Americas News

Cuba's Catholic church calls for political reforms

Dec 5, 2011, 18:43 GMT

Havana - Cuba's Catholic church has renewed calls for the country's socialist government to enact political reforms in addition to recent economic changes.

It is the 'duty of the president' to speak about the current political situation, as he has already spoken about the island nation's economic situation, wrote Orlando Marquez, director of Palabra Nueva, the magazine of the archdiocese of Cuba, in the magazine's December issue.

Former president Fidel Castro ruled over a state-run economy for half a century. His brother Raul, who took the helm of government in 2006, has enacted economic reforms in what some have billed an effort to rescue the island nation's socialist political system.

Those include allowing Cubans to buy and sell real estate for the first time in more than half a century.

In recent weeks the lay magazine of the archdiocese, Espacio Laical, also called on the government to institute political reforms.