Pope issues invitation by video to Philadelphia visit events

After mass, Francis had the meeting many were anticipating. Castro then gave Francis a book titled “Fidel and Religion”.

It is not the first the Pope’s clothing has been at the mercy of the weather – in November previous year a gust of wind blew his mantle up over his entire head during his weekly general audience at the Vatican, leaving him unable to see, hear of speak for a moment. The Catholic Church was once an integral part of Cuban history, the Pope said, inspiring veterans of its war for independence and “sustaining the hope which preserves people’s dignity in the most hard situations”.

Reciting the Angelus after Mass on Sunday in Havana’s Revolution Square, the Pope said, “We do not have the right to allow ourselves yet another failure on this path of peace and reconciliation”.

Castro also thanked the pope’s role in the effort, and praised the pontiff’s critiques of the world’s economic system that has “turned money into its idol”.

(Vatican Radio) During his flight from Rome to Cuba, Pope Francis spoke about his meeting with a refugee family being housed by the Vatican’s Sant’Anna parish.

Francis also went to the Palace of the Revolution for an hour-long private meeting with President Raul Castro, Fidel’s 84-year-old younger brother.

Pope Francis presented Fidel Castro with a link to the past Sunday: poems by a Jesuit teacher forced to flee Cuba after his one-time student – the now-ailing Marxist icon – led a revolution.

“Service is never ideological for we do not serve ideas, we serve people“, he said in his homily of the Mass, which was attended by President Raul Castro and top members of the communist government. He preached before a huge throng of worshippers who packed Havana’s historic Revolutionary Square.

The Pope was driven through the crowds in his white vehicle, pausing to kiss children who were held up to him. “This pope is really something different and a breath of fresh air for the church”, said parishioner George Raiss.

Among them were three dissidents whose detention kept them from approaching the papal residence on Saturday night, where they hoped to see the pope. Bells rang out and a few hundred excited and sweaty priests and sisters clapped and shouted “Francisco!” as the pope arrived.

Raul Garcia, a taxi driver, said: “We’ve had two papal visits already and nothing changed for ordinary people”.