Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre

Patroness of Cuba

Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre —»Cachita,» as Cubans affectionately call her— is one of the most beloved Marian devotions in the Caribbean. The image depicts the Virgin holding the Child Jesus in her arms and is venerated in the National Shrine Basilica of El Cobre, in the province of Santiago de Cuba. Official patroness of Cuba since 1916, her devotion accompanies the Cuban people both on the island and abroad.

Key facts

The finding of the image floating in the Bay of Nipe by «the three Juanes» and the wondrous events attributed to it belong to tradition, recorded in a sworn declaration of 1687 that, by acknowledged account, blends history and legend. We distinguish these from the documented facts about the shrine, the patronages and the coronations.

History and tradition of Charity of El Cobre

The finding by the three Juanes (tradition)

According to the traditional account, around 1612 —or in early 1613— the image appeared in the Bay of Nipe, the largest in Cuba, on the northern coast of the eastern region. It was sighted by three young men who worked as slaves in the copper mines: a black boy of about ten, Juan Moreno, and two indigenous brothers, Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos. Cuban devotional lore remembers them as «the three Juanes.»

They had gone in search of salt when they spotted, drawing near over the foam of the water, an image of the Virgin holding the Child Jesus in her arms, resting on a small board on which some letters could be read:

They marveled that the garments of the image were not wet. They carried the image to the estate of Barajagua, where an altar was set up for it; the administrator of the mines, Captain Francisco Sánchez de Moya, ordered that a house be built for it and that it always be kept with a light burning. Tradition relates that the image would disappear from its altar and be found again with its garments wet, and that three lights seen on three nights atop a hill marked the place where its definitive chapel was raised, near the copper mines.

This account is preserved in a sworn declaration that Juan Moreno himself, now an old man, made «seventy-five years after the event» —on 1 April 1687— a document kept in the General Archive of the Indies in Seville. Scholars note that in it history is mixed with legend.

The shrine of El Cobre

The National Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre rises in El Cobre, a municipality in the province of Santiago de Cuba. It is one of the religious sites most venerated by the Cuban people. The present church —with three naves, a symmetrical façade and a central dome— was inaugurated on 8 September 1927; an earlier shrine, from 1906, had collapsed because of the blasting in the mines. On 30 December 1977, by a bull of Pope Paul VI, it was proclaimed a minor basilica. Beneath the Virgin’s niche lies the Chapel of Miracles, where the faithful place their offerings, and it is customary for pilgrims to take home tiny stones from the mine in which the copper gleams.

Patroness of Cuba

In 1915, the veterans of the War of Independence wrote to Pope Benedict XV asking him to proclaim Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre patroness of Cuba. On 10 May 1916, Benedict XV granted the request and declared her Patroness of Cuba. The image was canonically crowned in December 1936, during the pontificate of Pius XI, by the then bishop of Santiago de Cuba, Monsignor Valentín Zubizarreta.

Devotion to Cachita accompanied the Cuban people from the wars of independence that began in 1868, when the troops of the Liberation Army commended themselves to her. In 1998, during his visit to the island, Saint John Paul II crowned and blessed the image in the Antonio Maceo Plaza of Santiago de Cuba. Benedict XVI granted her the Golden Rose in 2012, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the apparition, and Pope Francis, in 2015, commemorated the hundred years of Cuba’s consecration to the Virgin.

The spiritual message of Charity of El Cobre

Devotion to Cachita speaks today with simple words:

📿 Mary draws near to the humble. She chose to be found by three mine workers, simple people of the land.
🌊 Mary comes to those who seek her. Her image came over the waters into the hands of those who were setting out for their daily labor.
🇨🇺 Mary accompanies her people. Patroness of Cuba in peace and in the trials of its history, she sustains the hope of the Cuban people.
✝️ Mary always leads to her Son. She holds the Child Jesus in her arms: she never keeps anything for herself, she always leads us to Him.

Prayer to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre

Pray also the Marian prayers and turn to Mary as Cubans have always done at her shrine of El Cobre.