Vatican eyes end of embargo after US-Cuba thaw

“The Catholic Church is Cuba’s only solution”, said Rosario Perez, 73, among thousands of faithful who packed a Miami basketball arena last week for an annual celebration of the Virgin of Charity, Cuba’s patron saint.

“He should exert more pressure”, said Antonio Rodiles, head of the hardline group Estado de SATS.

Just weeks after Fidel Castro led a band of rebels to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, relations between the new government and the Church descended into what sociologist Aurelio Alonso calls “a very tense” three years.

“Often, these types of problems are dealt with in conversations, not so much with public proclamations but in personal, direct or private discussions”, Lombardi said. If they do not plant the seed of leadership in others, they are worthless.

“Francis won’t explicitly be political at all when he’s here, but everything he does will be profoundly political in its implications”, said Austen Ivereigh, author of “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope“.

Francis has a close relationship with Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana who has overseen the church’s relationship with the Cuban state since 1981.

While the pope values the social achievements of Cuba’s revolution such as free universal health care and education, he has staunchly criticized its decades of repression.

Amnesty worldwide , which has been barred from Cuba since 1988, said Thursday that advances have been made there, including a 2013 reform loosening travel restrictions and the release of political prisoners.

Anticipating questions on whether a meeting between Francis and the former Cuban president would happen, Father Lombardi said that “in all likelihood it’s very predictable that it will happen, clearly during the day in Havana”.

“I’ve never been to a Mass. I don’t know what that is”, motorcycle taxi driver Jose Manuel Echevarria said as he waited for a friend to return with an axle to replace one snapped by one of Havana’s many deep potholes.

“If the Cuban authorities are serious about instigating real changes, they must show openness not only with other governments but also with independent human rights monitoring bodies, such as Amnesty global and UN Special Procedures on human rights, who have been banned from the country for years”, said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Dissidents say that’s not enough.

“Let us work then to repel everything that makes light of marriage; every form of injustice and inequality, especially toward women”, he said. “It’s essential that the pope delivers a message to the government of Cuba”.

Banich is leading the small group of eight, heading from Miami to Cuba. “The goodwill of the pope is one thing; what the Cuban government is able to allow is another”.

According to experts, his visit to the White House and Congress, as well as the mass he will offer in the capital, are not the most unsafe activities. These political prisoners include Vaclev Havel Award winning graffiti artist, Danilo Maldonado Machado “El Sexto”, who has been unjustly imprisoned, without trial, since last December for little more than attempting an artistic performance.