Leo XIV Entrusts Cuba’s Primatial See to Díaz Ruiz
At 81, after nearly two decades in Santiago, García leaves a see Pope Francis visited in 2015; Cuba’s bishops praise his fidelity.
On November 7, 2026, the Holy See announced that Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop Juan Gabriel Díaz Ruiz, until now bishop of Matanzas, as archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, and accepted the resignation of Archbishop Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez, who is 81.
Santiago de Cuba is the primatial see of the Cuban Church. Archbishop García led the archdiocese from February 2007—more than 19 years. Pope Francis visited Santiago during his apostolic journey in September 2015.
Grateful farewell for a long episcopal ministry
The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba thanked Archbishop García for “years of generous service to the People of God, with dedication to proclaiming the Gospel and an episcopal ministry exercised with fidelity and pastoral spirit.”
The conference recalled that he served as vice president of the Cuban episcopate from 2006 to 2009 and as its president from 2009 to 2013; he was re-elected in 2013 and continued until 2017. He remains a member of the Permanent Committee and is president of Caritas Cuba.
From Matanzas to the primatial archdiocese
Bishop Juan Gabriel Díaz Ruiz was born on November 14, 1960, in Céspedes, in the province of Camagüey. He studied civil engineering at the University of Camagüey, then philosophy and theology at the major seminaries of San Basilio Magno in Santiago de Cuba and San Carlos and San Ambrosio in Havana. He later earned a licentiate in Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.
Ordained a priest on August 5, 1989, for the Archdiocese of Camagüey, he served as parish vicar at Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria in Morón, then as pastor of Nuestra Señora del Carmen in Florida. He also served as diocesan administrator of Camagüey, as clergy delegate to the National Commission of Priests, and taught at the San Carlos and San Ambrosio seminary in Havana.
Pope Francis named him bishop of Ciego de Ávila on July 8, 2017; he was consecrated on September 30, 2017. He was appointed bishop of Matanzas on April 7, 2022. He is currently vice president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba and president of its national commission for the pastoral care of adolescents, youth, and communications.
The appointment places a pastor formed in Scripture and long engaged in Cuban diocesan life at the head of the country’s oldest metropolitan see, as the local Church continues its mission under the Successor of Peter.