Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Pope Meets with Raul and Fidel Castro in Cuba; Urges Com. Govt. to Allow Church to Teach Rel.

Pope Benedict XVI urged Cubans today (March 28, 2012) to search for "authentic freedom," and wound up his trip to Cuba with a chat with the communist country's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, according to the Reuters website.

The two octogenarians spoke for about a half-hour in the Vatican embassy, after the pope celebrated an open-air mass for a crowd estimated by the Vatican at some 300,000 people in Havana's Revolutionary Square.

Benedict -- who said last week that communism no longer works in Cuba -- pressed the government to let the Catholic Church teach religion in schools and universities.

In talks yesterday with Cuban President Raul Castro -- Fidel's younger brother -- the pope urged a greater role for the Church and asked the Cuban government to consider making Good Friday a national holiday in the communist country. Both Castro brothers were educated by Jesuits, the worldwide Catholic order.

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