The Cuban government may have missed a deadline to release 13 prisoners of conscience detained in Cuba, but the work of the Church on their behalf — and for all prisoners on the island, regardless of their offence — will continue, said Cuba Bishop Arturo Gonzalez of Santa Clara during a news conference Nov. 8 in Miami.

The Cuban Church, led by Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega, has been successfully negotiating the release of Cuban prisoners of conscience since this past summer, when the death of one of the prisoners, who was on a hunger strike, and the rough treatment of the Ladies in White, a group of women who protested peacefully each Sunday in Havana, brought international condemnation to the Castro regime.