Pope Francis will be the third Roman Catholic pontiff to visit Cuba when he arrives on Saturday. Benedict also celebrated Mass in Havana and met with former president Fidel Castro.
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Dawson and his family leave next week as they travel to be part of the World Meeting of the Families in Philadelphia, where the Pope will address almost two million people next weekend.
According to his official itinerary, Francis will travel from Havana to Holguin to Santiago de Cuba and pay a visit to a shrine in El Cobre dedicated to Our Lady of Charity, Cuba’s revered patron saint.
In the pope’s first-ever visit to the USA , Americans will find a man who not only was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year, but someone who was on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine.
The Pope’s upcoming visit to the USA will be a pivotal touchstone as Americans become increasingly divided on what it means to be Catholic, experts say.
As the first ever Pope from Latin America, in Cuba and the USA he is expected to urge an end to the embargo which has been in place since the 1959 revolution.
The official, not authorized to publicly talk about the changes, said U.S. President Barack Obama is moving on his own in the next few days, with a new set of rules designed to further loosen the economic stranglehold on Cuba.
This year, traditional Catholic-majority countries, such as Ireland and Mexico, took steps to recognize same-sex couples, joining numerous other countries with marriage equality, such as the USA , Brazil, Spain and Argentina, from where Pope Francis hails.
Martocchio says as Catholics, he believes they transcend political divisions. He is excited to witness history and hopeful the pope’s interaction with US leaders will have an impact.
Francis, no doubt, will graciously greet all he meets.
Not everyone feels that the Pope has been hard enough on the island, especially during the rapprochement with the U.S. This week the Cuban government announced the release of some 3,500 prisoners, but they were not the political prisoners.
Pope Francis is not only extremely popular throughout the world, he also appears to have a great sense of timing.
Director of Campus Ministry Kyle Lierk will lead the group.
Although he rejects as absurd some critics’ depictions of him as a veiled Marxist, the pope does share with the Castro brothers a radical critique of global capitalism.
Annarelli said Francis is re-energizing the church.
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In a message broadcast on the island ahead of his trip he praised Cubans’ spirit in the face of adversity. And I can tell you this: “I’m not about to get myself into an argument with the pope”.
