Venerable Félix Varela (1788-1853)

Jan. 1, 2024

By Columbia staff

Jan. 1, 2024

Venerable Félix Varela

Slight in stature, Father Félix Varela didn’t look like the “Benjamin Franklin of Cuba.” But as an intellectual, he was a giant, helping to form a generation of Cuban leaders. More than a century after Father Varela’s death, Pope John Paul II praised him as “the best synthesis … of Christian faith and Cuban culture.”

Born in Havana, Varela was raised by his grandfather, a Spanish military officer, in St. Augustine, Florida. As a teen choosing between the military or seminary, Varela declared, “I want to be a soldier of Jesus Christ.”

He returned to Cuba to study at San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary and was ordained a priest in 1811. Within a year, Father Varela joined the seminary faculty, teaching philosophy, physics and chemistry. His students called him “the one who taught us to think.”

Elected to represent Cuba in the Spanish parliament in 1821, Father Varela advocated for Cuban independence and the abolition of slavery. His views incurred the king’s ire, and the priest was exiled in 1823.

Father Varela found asylum in the United States, where in 1824 he founded El Habanero, considered the nation’s first Spanish-language Catholic newspaper. The next year, Father Varela began serving as a parish priest among the downtrodden immigrant communities in New York City, particularly the Irish. His reputation for charity and administrative skills led him to be named vicar general of the diocese. He also served as a theological consultant to the U.S. bishops’ committee that wrote the Baltimore Catechism.

Father Félix Varela died Feb. 18, 1853, in St. Augustine. His cause for canonization, initiated in 1983, has been advanced by the Cuban bishops and Archdiocese of New York. Pope Benedict XVI declared him venerable in 2012.

Venerable Félix Varela (1788-1853)

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