Pope praises U.S.-Cuba detente as model for world

HAVANA -- Pope Francis hailed detente between the United States and Cuba as a model of reconciliation for the world, urging presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro to persevere in building normal ties as the pontiff launched a 10-day tour of the former Cold War foes Saturday.

Francis' direct call for progress toward normalization came after weeks of Vatican assurances he would not explicitly address politics during his pastoral trip to Cuba and the U.S. Francis served as mediator and guarantor of 18 months of secret negotiations that led to the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries this year.

"For some months now, we have witnessed an event which fills us with hope: the process of normalizing relations between two peoples following years of estrangement," Francis said in a speech on the tarmac of Jose Marti International Airport.

"I urge political leaders to persevere on this path and to develop all its potentialities as a proof of the high service which they are called to carry out on behalf of the peace and well-being of their peoples, of all America, and as an example of reconciliation for the entire world."

Francis extended his greetings to Raul's brother Fidel, with whom Francis is expected to meet as early as today. He also said he wanted his greeting "to embrace especially all those who, for various reasons, I will not be able to meet" -- a possible nod to political dissidents as well as ordinary Cubans across the island.

After being greeted at the airport by Raul Castro, Francis was due to rest for the remainder of the day ahead of his first big Mass today in Havana's Revolution Square, an official meeting with the Cuban president, a vespers service and his first encounter with Cuba's young people.

Like the last two popes to visit Cuba, Francis has no meetings with dissidents on his official schedule, and his speeches here are being closely watched for their handling of two delicate and related topics: human rights in Cuba and the church's freedom to operate in the officially agnostic, communist state.

Francis didn't explicitly mention human rights in his speech but said he would pray to Cuba's patron saint, the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, "for all her Cuban children and for this beloved nation, that it may travel the paths of justice, peace, liberty and reconciliation."

While he made no reference to the church's desire to be allowed to operate religious schools and broadcast on state-run television and radio, he said his trip was to help the church "support and encourage the Cuban people in its hopes and concerns, with the freedom, the means and the space needed to bring the proclamation of the Kingdom to the existential peripheries of society."

Francis is the third pontiff to visit Cuba in 17 years -- a remarkable record for any country, much less one with such a small observantly Catholic community.

After flying from Cuba to the U.S. on Tuesday he will, like his predecessors, grab the world stage at the United Nations to press his agenda on migration, the environment and religious persecution.

Elsewhere in the U.S., Francis will be delivering the message that Hispanics are the bedrock of the American church.

His U.S. visit boasts several firsts for history's first Latin American pope: Francis will become the first pope to address the U.S. Congress, and he will proclaim the first saint on U.S. soil by canonizing the controversial Spanish missionary Junipero Serra.

It's largely unknown territory for the 78-year-old Argentine Jesuit, who has never been in the U.S. and spent only a few hours transiting Cuba years ago. He confessed the United States was so foreign to him, he would spend the summer reading up on it. His popularity ratings are high in the U.S., but he has gained detractors, particularly among conservatives over what he calls the excesses of capitalism.

That has endeared him to Raul Castro, who vowed earlier this year if Francis kept it up, he would return to the Catholic Church.

Still, Francis has been on record criticizing Cuba's communist -- and, for decades, atheist -- revolution as denying individuals their "transcendent dignity."

The pope is revered in Cuba for mediating the move toward better relations with the U.S.

"This visit is like a breath of hope blowing over Cuba, more than anything because of the role that the pope played in the reestablishment of relations," said Diego Carrera, a retired state worker in Havana.

The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the Holy See hopes the rapprochement will soon be followed by the removal of the U.S. embargo, which the Vatican has long opposed. On Friday, the United States eased rules for U.S. citizens wishing to travel to Cuba and simplified procedures for telephone and Internet investments and money transfers to Cuba.

The Cuban government pursued a citywide effort to bring crowds into the streets of the capital, offering a day's pay, snacks and transportation to state workers to gather along the pope's route from the airport to the papal ambassador's home. University students also were recruited to turn out.

Francis will travel to the eastern Cuban city of Santiago to pray at the sanctuary of Cuba's patron saint and stop in the city of Holguin en route, demonstrating again his desire to visit the places that often get overlooked.

Francis arrives in Washington on Tuesday for the U.S. leg of his trip, greeted at Andrews Air Force Base by the first family.

The U.S. visit, planned well before the Cuban stop was added, will be notable for the center stage Francis is giving Hispanics, who make up about 38 percent of adult Catholics in the U.S., according to the CARA research center at Georgetown University.

Francis will deliver most of his speeches in his native Spanish, even though he speaks good English. He will meet with immigrants on several occasions and bless a wooden cross particularly important to the Hispanic faithful. His canonization of the Spanish-born Serra, who built missions across California in the 18th century, is aimed at giving Latino Catholics a role model even though Native Americans have opposed the canonization and argued he helped wipe out indigenous populations.

Francis is expected to make immigration one of the major themes of the visit. He has called for countries to be more welcoming of migrants seeking a better life for themselves and decried in particular the plight of would-be migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border -- signaling he has no qualms about wading into a charged issue during the U.S. presidential campaign.