Cuba and the post-Fidel Castro Catholic church could begin a new relationship. The late Cuban leader had a volatile connection with the Catholic church. Major changes to Cuba’s one-party Communist system are predicted. Castro’s brother, Raul, has led Cuba since 2006 when illness forced Fidel to retire. He has released dozens of political prisoners under Read more
The relationship Fidel Castro had with the Church has often often speculated about Pope Francis’s condolence message to Raul Castro expressed his “sentiments of grief”. He promised to pray for Fidel. Jesuit-educated, Fidel Castro followed a Marxist-Leninist ideology. Believing the Church was a state enemy, he declared Cuba an atheist state. He seized all Cuba’s Read more
A minor miracle occurred on a dark train platform in a provincial Cuban town in 1981. I had been a Cuban-American exile for two decades, and had managed to wrangle a visa to visit my sick mother. After seeing her, I had traveled to the train station with some unfinished business. The middle-aged woman in Read more
Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill have issued a deep and thorough call for reconciliation and unity amongst their two traditions. The two leaders met for 135 minutes in Cuba on February 12. It was the first meeting of this kind for nearly 1000 years. A joint statement was issued, in which Francis and Kirill Read more
Pope Francis is to meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on February 12 in Cuba in what is an historic first meeting between leaders of their two churches. The meeting, which is expected to take two hours, will take place when the Pope is en route to Mexico, the Vatican announced. A statement from the Vatican Read more
Pope Francis appeared to take aim at Cuba’s communist regime in comments at a Mass at Havana’s Revolution Square on Sunday. The Pontiff told the crowd that “service is never ideological”. Speaking in a plaza dominated by a towering portrait of revolutionary Che Guevara, the Pope told the crowd they should “serve people, not ideas”. 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
Cuban President Raul Castro said he is so impressed by Pope Francis that he could be persuaded to return to the Catholic Church. Mr Castro and his brother Fidel suppressed the church in communist Cuba for more than half a century. President Raul Castro had a private meeting with the Pope in Rome on Monday. Read more
President Obama publicly thanked Pope Francis for helping facilitate the beginning of normalised relations between the US and Cuba. The president’s comments came, Thursday, on a nationally televised address. Obama said Pope Francis wrote to both Cuban president Raul Castro and himself urging them to find a way to resolve Cuba’s imprisonment of US citizen Read more
Cuba’s communist Government is on the brink of permitting the building of the first new Catholic church in the country since the Marxist revolution of 1959. The church will be built in country’s second city, Santiago de Cuba. Catholics in the city have been attending Mass in the street since Hurricane Sandy destroyed their previous ramshackle Read more