The Jesuit-educated Fidel Castro rejected the Church of his childhood following the 1959 Cuban revolution, and for two decades never met a bishop. But then came a book-long interview with a Brazilian friar, and growing closeness between Church and state in Cuba — as well as tantalizing signs that Castro was seeking reconciliation with his Read more
Baptized as Roman Catholics and educated by Jesuits, Fidel and Raul Castro turned against the Church by declaring Cuba an atheist state, chasing out priests and shutting down religious schools after seizing power in a 1959 revolution. In their old age, however, they have brought the Church in from the cold and are gracious and Read more
When Pope Benedict XVI travelled to Cuba two weeks ago, he was acting within a long tradition. Popes, after all, are not only spiritual leaders, they are representatives of the oldest continuous absolute monarchy in the world, which traces back to the Apostle Peter two millennia ago: The Holy See has been engaging in diplomacy Read more
Three decades ago, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger rose to fame as the architect of the Vatican’s crackdown on liberation theology in Latin America, which he saw as a dangerous baptism of Marxist class struggle. That stance made Ratzinger a hero to anti-communist stalwarts everywhere, the perfect intellectual complement to John Paul II’s muscular challenge to the Read more
Cuba has responded to Pope Benedict’s visit by announcing that this coming Good Friday will become a ‘one-time’ national holiday. Minutes before Benedict departed from Cuba on March 28, President Raul Castro told the Pope of his desire to declare Friday, April 6 a holiday “as an exception, and in consideration to His Holiness and Read more
At a 40 minute personal meeting between Cuban president Raul Castro and Pope Benedict, the Holy Father asked for Cuba to recognise Good Friday as a holiday. Noting that John Paul II asked a similar request of Fidel Castro about Christmas and it was restored as a national holiday, Vatican Spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ said, Read more
Ahead of his visit Pope Benedict extended a gesture of friendship and returned a 60cm crocodile to Cuba, its native country. The endangered crocodile was smuggled into Italy by an Italian tourist and was captured in the thief’s kitchen by wildlife experts. Blessed by the Pope’s chief of staff Monsignor Giovanni Angelo Becciu, and named Benedictus, Read more
There are rumours afoot that Fidel Castro may rejoin the Catholic Church. The chatter in Rome is that Castro is preparing to be readmitted to the Church when Pope Benedict visits Cuba next month. Speculation went viral as two Italian daily newspapers, La Repubblica and La Stampa reported that the committed revolutionary atheist and ailing octogenarian had Read more