Small potatoes and a container of chicken: Catholic church sounds alarm on Cuba

Source: USA Today

Updated April 12, 2026, 9:25 a.m. ET


Cuba’s worsening fuel crisis is now severely hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid distributed through the Catholic Church, a senior American church official said in an interview.

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who has helped coordinate aid shipments to Cuba for three decades from South Florida, told USA TODAY that what his diocese is able to send to Cuba is "small potatoes" because it's proving increasingly difficult to find ways to distribute the supplies it sends to the island amid extreme fuel shortages.

Wenski said that in the past week his community was able to ship a container of chicken to Caritas Cuba, an aid group associated with the Catholic Church, but that when it reached the area "Caritas was using almost what I would describe as wheelbarrows to distribute it. They sent me the photos."

He said that Cubans are telling him that the island is reaching its "zero hour": humanitarian collapse.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/04/12/catholic-church-warns-cuba-fuel-crisis-humanitarian-collapse/89552800007/