Castro, Obama speak on phone ahead of pope’s visit

But she offers three words of advice to people who decide to do so: Pack your patience.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: Made the first papal visit to the island January 21-25, 1998. Papal aides said Francis would raise the subject during his visit to Cuba and then the United States but would not dwell on it, given the delicate and evolving state of Washington-Havana ties.

“I (will) let them experience it. We’ll definitely do prayer throughout the trip”, Cannaday said. “I want to be among you as a missionary of compassion”.

At one time, the city teemed with Catholics, with more than 250,000 students in the church’s schools and people identifying their neighborhood by the local Catholic parish.

“The Pope achieved the reestablishment of relations between the two countries”, said Miguel Marcelino, a member of a worker-owned gardening services cooperative.

The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, told Vatican television Thursday that in his speeches to Congress and the United Nations the pope will emphasize the encyclical’s message on the need to protect the environment. “That’s what’s going to draw the estranged Catholics back in”, Ledesma said.

“We shouldn’t expect a catalogue of Cuba’s faults”, said Candida Moss, theology professor at the University of Notre Dame.

“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”.

The poped-out Jeep Wrangler he’ll be sporting during his USA visit probably won’t hurt his cool points either.

The Vatican has taken issue with some of the guests invited to meet the pope at the White House during his visit to the USA next week.

Most of the people who come to hear the pope will listen to him speak in Spanish.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer is asking other marketplace sellers to follow in eBay’s footsteps, saying in a statement, “To think that any victor who received one of the lottery tickets to see the Pope would seek to make a fast buck off of the opportunity is really gut wrenching”.

On the streets, however, where locals were avidly discussing all aspects of the pope’s visit, few expected the pontiff to wade far into Cuban politics.