FELIPE REY DE CASTRO AND THE AGRUPACIÓN CATÓLICA UNIVERSITARIA. Biographical Essay

Roberto Mendez Martinez (Camaguey, Cuba, 1958). Poet, essayist and narrator. Graduated in Sociology at the University of Havana. Doctor of Science on Art from the Higher Institute of Art in Havana. Number Member of the Cuban Academy of Language and Corresponding Member of the Royal Spanish Academy. Consultant of the Pontifical Council for Culture of the Holy See (Vatican) for two periods (2008-2019). He is currently a Permanent Professor, holder of the Chair of History and Culture of Cuba and Head of the Department of History and Culture of the Institute of Ecclesiastical Studies: Padre Felix Varela.

     This book is a biography and study of the life and work of Fr. Felipe Rey de Castro (Spain, 1889-Cuba, 1952), founder of the Agrupación Católica Universitaria (ACU), one of the most important Catholic institutions in Cuba, which continues to, since 1961, his apostolic mission in Miami. The Jesuit priest Felipe Rey de Castro was born in Brion, La Coruña, Galicia, Spain in 1889 and died in Havana, Cuba, in 1952. In 1931 he founded the Agrupación Católica Universitaria (ACU) in Havana together with a group of high school graduates from the Belén school. This Marian Congregation had a very special importance in the formation of hundreds of young Cuban university students that transcended the Cuban Republican era and also in the fight against the establishment of a totalitarian communist regime in 1959. The ACU has continued its apostolic work in Miami, for many years under the direction of Fr. Amando Llorente SJ and other Jesuit priests. This book recounts the life of Fr. Rey de Castro SJ. and also about the foundation and development of the ACU in Cuba.