Pope Francis presented Fidel Castro with a link to the past Sunday: poems by a Jesuit teacher forced to flee Cuba after his one-time student – the now-ailing Marxist icon – led a revolution.
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While most Cubans are nominally Catholic, fewer than 10 per cent practice their faith.
Pope Francis’s trip to Cuba, the third papal visit to the island, is turning out to be a more relaxed affair.
Francis also urged Cubans to look out for one another and not just judge others based on what they are or are not doing.
“Being a Christian entails promoting the dignity of our brothers and sisters, fighting for it, living for it”, Francis told the crowd.
Alex Ferdinand, who owns a restaurant in Havana’s historic centre, said: “For me, it makes no difference whether he comes here or not”. “He made a call for unity, and that’s what we want”.
“God’s holy and faithful people in Cuba is a people with a taste for parties, for friendship, for handsome things”, Francis said.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his part thanked the pope on Twitter and vowed: “We will continue on the path of peace and reconciliation”.
But he warned against both ideology and an every-man-for-himself mentality, at a time when Cuba faces a delicate period of economic and political transition. Such is the case of 54-year-old worker Jose Rafael Velazquez, who arrived with his wife three-hours before the mass began.
It’s the way in which the pope handles those topics and others that impress and inspire many people.
Better sensitized to the issue than predecessors because of his Latin American roots, the 78-year-old pontiff facilitated a back channel for secret talks and sent missives to Presidents Raul Castro and Barack Obama at a delicate stage in 2014.
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The huge plaza is the site of government and Communist Party headquarters and where Cubans celebrate May Day beneath massive portraits of revolutionary leaders Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos built into the facades of state buildings. “I hope he can change the situation politically but it depends on the next United States government”. The Obama administration also called on Congress to lift the embargo, and on Friday it unveiled a new round of executive actions that carve out exceptions to the sanctions, such as allowing USA businesses to open offices in Cuba, letting US residents send unlimited cash to Cubans and permitting virtually all USA pleasure boats to travel to the island without a special license.
