Pope to celebrate giant Mass in Cuba one day after veiled critique to leaders

Pope to celebrate giant Mass in Cuba one day after veiled critique to
leaders
By Daniel Burke, Chris Cuomo and Ben Brumfield, CNN
Updated 1324 GMT (2024 HKT) September 20, 2015 | Video Source: CNN

Havana, Cuba (CNN)Cubans waiting for Pope Francis in Havana's Revolution
Square could not remember ever having seen a picture of Jesus Christ
there. And this one had towering stature, with words under the picture
reading, "Come to me."

Long before dawn, crowds in the communist country began pouring in to
see the Pope, who will take to the stage across from Christ's likeness
Sunday morning. Before celebrating Mass, he will pass through the crowd
in the popemobile greeting worshippers.

Three hours ahead of his arrival, the square was already packed with
many thousands of people. The Cuban government was expecting 100,000 or
more people to attend. The Red Cross has set up stations to take care of
medical needs that might arise from exhaustion.

The government has given the crowd a rare treat, opening up Wi-Fi
signals. It has encouraged Cubans to send messages of welcome to the Pope.

Political meetings
Later Sunday, Francis is to meet with government officials and follow
that with meetings with local priests and seminarians.

When Francis landed in Cuba on Saturday, he quickly called on the
communist nation to "open itself to the world," while praising its
recent restoration of diplomatic ties with the United States.

Francis was greeted by President Raul Castro at Jose Marti International
airport in Havana, where the Pope urged Cuba to grant its people the
"freedom, the means and the space" to practice their faith -- an
implicit criticism of the many restrictions the country places on religion.

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 difficult situations."

In his short speech, Francis also invoked Jose Marti, a Cuban hero, to
deliver a veiled critique of the Castros, said Andrew Chesnut, a
professor of Latin American history at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Marti, a George Washington-type figure, died in 1895 during the war for
independence.

"He specifically referenced Marti as a fighter against 'dynasties,' a
reference of course to the five-decadelong Castro regime," Chesnut said.

But a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Pope was
not necessarily referring to the Castros.

"I don't think that it was a citation chosen for a specific reference to
today's situations," Lombardi said at a Saturday evening news conference.

Francis is the third pope to visit Cuba, after St. John Paul II in 1998
and Benedict XVI in 2012. Francis' call for Cuba to "open itself" to the
world echoed John Paul's remarks, a sign of the Catholic Church's
longstanding efforts to carve out space in a country that has been
officially atheist for decades.

Lombardi said the Pope believes religious freedom in Cuba means more
than the ability to worship freely. It also entails the right to open
schools and practice acts of charity, as well as other missions.

Castro, who has said the Pope has inspired him to consider joining the
Catholic Church, effusively praised Francis on Saturday, particularly
his criticism of consumerism and environmental degradation. He also
thanked him for his role in restoring ties between the United States and
Cuba, while calling for the closing of the U.S. military base at
Guantanamo Bay.

On Tuesday, the Pope will fly to Washington, a visible sign of the
detente he has helped broker between Cuba and the United States.

"For some months now, we have witnessed an event which fills us with
hope," the Pope said. "The process of normalizing relations between two
peoples following years of estrangement."

Francis also called the restoration of diplomatic ties "an example of
reconciliation for the entire world."

"The world needs reconciliation in this environment of 'third world war
by stages' that we are experiencing."

Some American conservatives, however, have criticized the restoration of
ties with the communist country, saying that the United States should
have required the release of political dissidents.

"The Castro brothers are mass murderers," Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican
from New Jersey, told CNN. "They have tortured and imprisoned thousands
of dissidents."

U.S. President Barack Obama and Castro spoke on the phone Friday to
discuss the process of normalizing relations between the two countries.

Just last week, the United Nations announced that Raul Castro would
travel to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly. It will be his
first visit to the United States in more than half a century.

U.S. and Cuban officials have said that Obama could visit the
communist-run island next year, if the two countries progress
sufficiently in normalization talks.

On Friday, the departments of Treasury and Commerce announced revisions
to existing Cuban sanctions, in the third set of regulatory changes
since the President announced in December that the United States would
re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.

CNN's Patrick Oppmann contributed to this report.

Source: Pope Francis praises and criticizes Cuba - CNN.com -
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/20/world/pope-cuba-open/