New York Times
April 18, 1961.  p. 16.

Cuba Jails Bishop and a Priest on Charges of Holding Dollars

By Sam Pope Brewer
Special to The New York Times

        MIAMI, April 17--The Auxiliary Bishop of Havana, Msgr. Eduardo Boza Masvidal, and another priest were arrested today in their church in Havana on charges of having engaged in counter-revolutionary activity.
        The arrests were officially announced on the 7:30 P.M. news broadcast from Havana.
        Msgr. Boza Masvidal and the Rev. Blanco Blanco were accused of having held United States currency illegally and of having hoarded medicines and other items in their church for the benefit of "counter-revolutionaries."
        They were arrested, according to the announcement, by members of the Committee for Defense of the Revolution, a group of civilians assigned to hunt down counter-revolutionaries in their own neighborhood.
$236 Reported Found
        The searchers were said to have found $236, some medicine and a military cap with a major's insignia hidden in the church. It is illegal to have United States dollars.
        A leader in organizing youth movements, Bishop Boza Masvidal has strongly opposed the Castro militia movement among the youth of the Roman Catholic Church.
        He has been a leader in the fight against Communist influence in Cuba and has some conflicts with the present Government.
        Tonight's announcement accused him of being "a political adventurer in a cassock."
        Bishop Boza Masvidal is a Cuban by birth and has been well-liked in Havana. He was formerly pastor of La Caridad, the downtown church in a commercial district in which he was arrested today. He then became rector of Villanueva University in Havana. He was made Auxiliary Bishop early in 1960. He is credited with an important role in producing the letter of the Cuban bishops to Dr. Castro Dec. 3 criticizing Communist trends in Cuba and attacks on the Church by the regime.
        In an address last June at Villanueva University, Bishop Boza Masvidal assailed state control of ideas and declared that "confiscation or arbitrary and unjustified expropriation is theft."
        The following month, the 45-year-old Bishop celebrated a mass for "all those who fight and suffer persecution under Communist regimes." The crowd that overflowed the Havana Cathedral shouted "Cuba, si! Russia, no!" Fights broke out outside.
        The Bishop was denounced on the Government-controlled radio as a "reactionary in priest's clothing." But he pursued his public attacks on the Communists, and the growing ties between the regime and the Soviet bloc.
        In November, he expelled thirty students who had charged in a press statement that "Falangist priests" planned to close Villanueva in agreement with the "Imperialistic United States." Villanueva is operated by the Augustinian Fathers, whose headquarters are in Villanova, Pa.
        On Dec. 6, a bomb caused slight damage to the Bishop's church in Havana.
        Bishop Boza Masvidal was born in Camaguey, Sept. 18, 1915.