WELCOME TO CUBA
Pope Francis and former Cuban president Fidel Castro shake hands during their meeting on Sunday in Havana. The Vatican said the two men exchanged books during a 40-minute meeting at Castro’s residence that was described as informal and familial.
Pope Francis met Fidel Castro on Sunday after urging thousands of Cubans to serve one another and not an ideology, a subtle jab at the communist system delivered during a Mass under the gaze of an image of Che Guevara in Havana’s iconic Revolution Plaza.
The Vatican described the 40-minute meeting at Castro’s residence as informal and familial, with an exchange of books and discussion about big issues facing humanity, including Francis’ recent encyclical on the environment and the global economic system.
Unlike the 2012 visit of Benedict XVI, when Castro peppered the German theologian with questions, the meeting with Francis was more of a conversation, papal spokesman the Rev. Frederico Lombardi said.
Castro’s children and grandchildren were also present.
Francis called on Castro after celebrating Mass in Havana’s main plaza on his first full day in Cuba.
Believers and non-believers alike streamed into the square before dawn, and they erupted in cheers when history’s first Latin American Pope spun through the crowd in his open-sided popemobile. Francis did not disappoint, winding his way slowly through the masses and stopping to kiss children held up to him.
While most Cubans are nominally Roman Catholic, fewer than 10 per cent practise their faith and Cuba is the least Catholic country in Latin America. The crowd was not as big as when St. John Paul II became the first pope to visit the island in 1998, but it drew people who seemed to genuinely want to be there and listen to Francis’s message.
“This is very important for us,” said Mauren Gomez, 40, who travelled about 250 kilometres from Villa Clara to Havana by bus, spending her time reciting the rosary.
In his homily, Francis urged Cubans to care for one another out of a sense of service, not ideology. He encouraged them to refrain from judging each other by “looking to one side or the other to see what our neighbour is doing or not doing.”
“Whoever wishes to be great must serve others, not be served by others,” he said. “Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people.”
Many Cubans complain about a system in which nearly every aspect of life is controlled by the government, from cultural institutions to block-level neighbourhood watch committees. People can be excluded from or lose benefits if they are perceived as being disloyal or unfaithful to the principles of the revolution.
Cubans are also increasingly concerned about growing inequality on the communist island, in which those with access to foreign capital live lives of relative luxury while others can barely feed themselves, generating jealousy and division within families and society at large.
“Being a Christian entails promoting the dignity of our brothers and sisters, fighting for it, living for it,” Francis told the crowd. “That is why 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.”
Francis finished the day with a meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro, an evening vespers service in the San Cristobal Cathedral and a meeting with young Cubans.
In an important aside, Francis ended Sunday’s Mass with an appeal for Colombia’s government and rebels, who have been holding peace talks in Havana for over two years, to end South America’s longest-running armed conflict.