Eduardo Boza Masvidal

Monsignor Eduardo Tomás Boza Masvidal (Camagüey, Cuba, September 18, 1915 - Los Teques, Venezuela, March 16, 2003) was a Cuban Bishop.

He studied at the Colegio de La Salle del Vedado in Havana and graduated from the University of Havana in 1940 with a doctorate in Philosophy and Letters. He studied his ecclesiastical career at the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary in Havana. He was ordained a priest on November 27, 1944, by Bishop Manuel Arteaga Betancourt, then Archbishop of Havana. He was cooperating vicar of the Cerro parish for a year, professor of the Seminary and chaplain of the Colegio del Sagrado Corazón, parish priest of San Luis de Madruga and in 1948 he was appointed parish priest of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad in Havana where he remained until his expulsion from Cuba by the Fidel Castro regime. In addition to his pastoral work in La Caridad, he was Prosecutor and Defender of the Bond in the Ecclesiastical Court, National Chaplain of the Scouts of Cuba. On May 15, 1960, he was ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Havana and holder of Vinda in the S.I.M. Havana Cathedral by Bishop Evelio Díaz. His episcopal motto was: "I have not come to be served, but to serve." At the end of 1960, he was appointed Rector of the University of Santo Tomas de Villanueva in Havana, the first Cuban to hold that position, until its final closure on May 2, 1961.

For maintaining an open and determined position against the incipient development of communism by the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, he was expelled along with 135 other priests on September 17, 1961 aboard the Spanish ship Covadonga that anchored in the Port of Havana was preparing to set sail for Spain.

From Spain, Msgr. Boza went to Venezuela, where he worked for more than four decades, especially as Vicar General of Los Teques. Throughout those years he founded movements to help and keep the Cubans of the diaspora together, he visited almost all the Cuban communities spread over many countries in America and Europe.

Boza died in Los Teques on March 16, 2003 at the age of 87. The funerals and burial were held in the Cathedral of Los Teques with the presence of representatives of both the city and the state of Miranda and his mortal remains were deposited in a crypt in the cathedral itself.