The Catholic Order of Piarist priests in Cuba are urging the communist Castro regime to immediately return a historical 18th century cloister and school seized by the ruling communists — and now on the brink of complete ruin — before its too late to save it.
Guanabacoa, a municipality in eastern Havana, is home to a centuries-old cloister and school deemed an essential part of Cuba’s cultural heritage and part of Guanabacoa’s Historic Center. In 1857, it housed the first teacher training college in all of Latin America. The facilities belonged to the Piarist Order before the Castro regime seized the building in 1961 during the first years of late communist dictator Fidel Castro’s decades-long persecution campaign against the Cuban Catholic Church. Since 1990, the now near-ruined building is officially a Cuban national monument.
The Cuban regime has reportedly left the historic building in a complete state of abandon since last year, leaving it without any degree of state security or custody. In March the cloister suffered a fire of undetermined cause. Weeks later, in April, a second fire broke out near the Church of St. Jude and St. Nicholas after individuals burned a pile of uncollected garbage near the church.
On Sunday, the Cuban Piarist priests issued a public statement on their official Facebook page denouncing the derelict state of the historical building and condemning the regime’s local municipal and educational authorities as responsible for the “absolute neglect” that is reducing the cloister and school — one of Cuba’s “treasures” — to ashes and rubble.
The priests are demanding the immediate return of the cloister and school to the Piarist Order, an end to the Cuban regime’s “sterile” promises, and public accountability for the “criminal negligence” of the historical building.
“This isn’t a religious complaint: it is the identity of all Guanabacoans that is fading away. Enough with the complicity,” the Order wrote, and stressed, “There is still time” to rescue the building.
“The Education Department abandoned the building without protection. The Government ignored repeated warnings from the Heritage Department and from us,” the statement read in part.
“The [Cuban Communist] Party condones this criminal inaction: promises ‘fade into bureaucratic silence’ while the looting takes place in plain sight,” the statement continued.
The Piarist Order summarized a series of recent “institutional shame” events involving the order and the historic building. The priests recounted that, in October 2025, their church was severely vandalized by unknown individuals who smashed the candlesticks of the Blessed Sacrament and the church’s ornaments and fans, among other damage. The priests also pointed out that they had denounced the cloister’s present state of abandon after the fire in March but no response was received from regime officials and the Cuban Communist Party beyond “promises and waiting” during April.
The Piarist Order and Cuban-focused outlets shared photos of the current derelict state of the building on social media.
On Sunday, the Piarist Order also published a video with footage of the ruined state of the building with the caption, “Will there be anything left for future generations?”
“The sad state of Guanabacoa’s historical, religious, and cultural heritage. The cloister and school of the Piarists in Guanabacoa,” the post’s accompanying text reads.
As is the case with the rest of Cuba’s infrastructure, the Castro regime did not invest any resources or expend any effort in maintaining the important cultural heritage facility after it seized it in 1961, leaving all of Cuba in a state of near-complete ruin after 67 years of continued disastrous communist policies.
The outlet Cubanos por el Mundo explained that the communist regime used the building as a music school, dental office, and municipal offices throughout the years it has been in power. Cuban outlets pointed out that, while the building is presently abandoned, it remains under regime control.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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