2015-09-18 17:13:00

Hopes ahead of Pope Francis' visit to Cuba


(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis arrives in Havana on Saturday at the start of his ten day visit to Cuba, the United States and the United Nations in New York. After meeting government leaders and saying Mass in the Cuban capital’s famous Revolution Square, the Pope will also visit the cities of Holguin and Santiago de Cuba on the south-eastern tip of the island.

Pope Francis follows in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who visited Cuba in 2012 and of Pope John Paul II, who was the first pontiff to travel to the communist country in 1998. But what difference will this visit by the first Latin American pontiff make for a nation that has just embarked on the road to rapprochement with the United States, following decades of isolation under a crippling economic embargo?

To find some answers to that question, Philippa Hitchen spoke with Marc Hanson,  senior associate for Cuba at the Washington Office on Latin America or WOLA,

Listen: 

Hanson says that increasing engagement by the Vatican in Cuba has meant more opening up and space for civil liberties...."there has been tremendous progress over the last 20 years with respect to the role of the Church in Cuban society....

There is still much to be done, he says, and his hope is that the Pope will "make clear to the Cuban authorities that the reforms must continue" to restore full human rights to the people there








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