from 1988 to 1999 and again from 2001 to 2007. Ortega y Alamino was one of the cardinal electors in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI and one of those who in the 2013 papal conclave elected Pope Francis. On 15 June 2013, Pope Francis named Cardinal Ortega y Alamino as his special envoy to the closing ceremony of the National Eucharistic Congress in El Salvador, scheduled for 11 August 2013. On 26 April 2016, Pope Francis accepted his resignation as archbishop. Death Ortega was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018. He died on 26 July 2019. Masses honoring the life of Ortega were held between 26 July and 28 July, and his funeral was held in the Havana Cathedral on 28 July. First vice-president Salvador Valdes Mesa, vice-president Roberto Morales, and Esteban Lazo, the head of the Cuban National Assembly, joined other Cuban government and Communist Party officials in attendance. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and former president, and also then-Cuban Communist Party leader, Raul Castro, did not attend, but sent bouquets of flowers. Religious leaders from other nations, such as Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, Puerto Rico Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves and Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston, also attended Ortega's funeral. Ortega was afterwards buried in the Colon Cemetery in Havana. Awards In 2004, the Institution of Humanitarian Merit in Barcelona awarded him the "Gran Cruz al Mérito Humanitario". He held honorary degrees from the University of Saint Thomas, Fordham University, Barry University, University of San Francisco, Providence College, Boston College, St. John's University, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, and Creighton University. Views Ortega y Alamino was critical of both capitalism and communism. Like John Paul II, he urged his nation not to construct a post-communist future on the basis of hyper-capitalist principles. In 1998, he warned of the insidious influence in Cuba of a "species of American subculture that invades everything: It is a fashion, a conception of life." In September 1993 the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops, headed by Cardinal Ortega, published the message "El amor todo lo espera" ('Love endures all things'), extremely critical of the Cuban Communist government (for which he could have been imprisoned for) and asking for a new direction of the country. In April 2010 he said that Cuba was in crisis. Political activism On 20 May 2010, , Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, and Cardinal Ortega