Pope Benedict XVI and Fidel Castro

 From: Inside The Vatican magazine. 


Snippets from the April 2012 edition.

Editorial by Robert Moynihan.

"What does a Pope do? That is what Fidel Castro wanted to know when he met Pope Benedict on March 28 at the end of Benedict's historic journey to Mexico and Cuba...

"Pope Benedict will be 85 on April 16, Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro is already 85, so he is a bit older than the Pope.  When they met, the two joked about their age and the hardships of being old men, and then Castro popped the question: So what do you do?


"Castro questioned Benedict in particular about the changes in the Church's liturgy, and he asked the Pope to send him a book to help him reflect.  The Pope said he would think about which one to send.


"The essential message that the Pope conveyed in Cuba was that the Church should be allowed to be free.


"And so we know, in part, what a Pope does: he speaks truth to power, and he asks that the Church be set free.


"If Cuba makes Good Friday a national holiday, we will know that Castro heard his voice, and that their meeting changed life in Cuba ..."