Pope Francis met with Castro at his home after he delivered a mass at Havana’s Revolution Square drawing the largest crowd ever for a papal mass, estimated at 200,000 people.
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Opposition groups have widely criticized the pope’s decision not to meet with them during his Cuba trip.
Many Cubans appreciate the pope for his role in the secret talks that led to last December’s breakthrough with Washington, when Castro and US President Barack Obama vowed to normalise relations and end a half century of animosity.
A photo provided by Alex Castro, Fidel’s son and official photographer, showed the 89-year-old former president and Francis looking into each other’s eye as they shook hands, the Pope in his white vestments and Castro in a white button-down shirt and Adidas sweat top. That process of engagement with a hitherto atheist state has won all faiths here more freedoms, and has turned the Catholic Church into the most influential non-government organisation on the island. Pope Francis will become the first pope of Latin America to celebrate a canonization mass on US soil.
“Christians are constantly called to set aside their own wishes and desires, their pursuit of power, and to look instead to those who are most vulnerable”, he said.
As he arrived at Miami global Airport on Friday to leave for Cuba, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski pointed out that Cuba’s bishops have sent Castro letters in recent years urging faster reform.
“Some of you were able to visit Cuba on the historic visit of Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, but under very different diplomatic circumstances, so a lot can happen in a few years”, he said.
Pope Francis left Cuba’s capital and headed to the eastern part of the island nation Monday, one day after meeting with the Castro brothers who have ruled Cuba since 1959.
The Pope’s tour will take him to the United States on Tuesday.
One of two unidentified men is grabbed by a security officer after they threw leaflets as Pope Francis arrives for a Mass at Revolution Plaza in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, September 20, 2015.
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After the introductions, the pope and the president left for a one-on-one meeting, while the members of the delegation went into a nearby hall for a separate discussion. And two other well-known Cuban dissidents said agents detained them after the Vatican invited them to the pope’s vespers service at Havana’s cathedral.
