Miami Archdiocese at a crossroads in 50th year

“His “Buenas noches” may have faltered a bit, but as soon as Bishop Coleman F. Carroll took the podium at Miami’s Bobby Maduro Stadium on Sept. 8, 1961, the crowd of 15,000 greeted him with a roaring, handkerchief-waving ovation.

The event, a Mass for Our Lady of Charity of Cobre, was the 3-year-old Miami Catholic Archdiocese’s first large gathering of Cuban exiles, and it charted the course for ties that still connect the church in South Florida to its immigrant faithful.

”Cubans will always have an easy attachment to the Archdiocese of Miami because of the way it welcomed us,” says Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Estévez, who was 15 when he came to Miami that year with Operation Pedro Pan, an archdiocese initiative. “This will remain deep in our souls.””

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