Agustín Román, 1928–2012

Agustín Román was a newly ordained Catholic priest ministering to Cuba’s backwater parishes when he and 132 other priests were expelled from the country in 1961 by its new leader, Fidel Castro. After eventually finding his way to Miami, Román emerged as a spiritual leader and tireless advocate for generations of Cuban exiles, becoming, in 1979, the first Cuban to be appointed bishop in the U.S. “I am a Cuban, and I will always love the country where I was born,” he once said. “But I love America, too. This is the country that welcomed me.”

Growing up the son of a farmworker in the Cuban countryside, Román was a quiet, asthmatic child, said The Miami Herald. He attended seminary in Cuba and Montreal. After being forced out of Cuba, Román worked in Spain and Chile before settling in Miami. There he urged displaced Cuban families to help him build the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity on Biscayne Bay, asking for 10 cents from each exile. He raised $240,000, and today the shrine attracts nearly 500,000 visitors each year.

In 1980, Román served as a mediator during the Mariel boatlift, when 100,000 prisoners and dissidents were allowed by Castro to flee Cuba by sea for the U.S., said the Associated Press. He gained national prominence in 1987 when he helped negotiate the end of riots by Mariel detainees at federal prisons in Georgia and Louisiana. He retired in 2003, but remained a beloved fixture in Miami’s Cuban exile community. “I would like to see Cuba before I die,” Román said several years ago. “But I know that when I am in heaven, I will see Cuba even better.”