Fidel Castro dies at 90

(Vatican Radio) Former President Fidel Castro, has died at age 90. His brother President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 p.m. Friday. 

Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost 50 years before Raul took over eight years ago.

Listen to James Blears’ report:

An era of Revolution, which shook and changed the World passes, with the death of Fidel Castro, the architect of the Cuban Revolution. 

Until the very end of his life, just ten years shy of a century, Fidel Castro was a hard line Marxist revolutionary.  He ruled Cuba for almost fifty years and through ten US Presidential terms.  He gave up smoking Cuba`s most famous product, cherished by rich capitalists.  But it was a serious gastric ailment, and a botched operation which so nearly claimed his life in 2006. It  convinced him to release his iron grip on the reigns of power in 2008, officially handing them over to his younger, quieter, less charismatic but more pragmatic brother Raul, who made the announcement of Fidel`s death on State Television on Friday evening.

The Cuban missile crisis in 1962, bringing the World within an eyelash of nuclear war, was to define Cuba`s future at the sharp end of the Cold War.

The visit of Pope Saint John Paul II in 1998 started the thaw, and confirmed that although Fidel was a lifelong communist, the education he had received from the Jesuits meant his claims of atheism were confounded.  The downfall of the Eastern bloc had plunged Cuba into economic poverty, only somewhat eased by the help of Venezuela`s Hugo Chavez.  Raul`s gradual and cautious reforms led to the once unthinkable restoration of diplomatic relations with Washington in 2014. 

Imprisoned following his unsuccessful attack on the Monclova Barracks in 1953, Fidel wrote his own epitaph commenting: "History will absolve me."  Now with his passing,  we will see if this indeed comes to pass.

In addition to his meeting with John Paul II, Castro had also met with Pope Emeritius Benedict XVI and most recently Pope Francis on their Papal visits to the country.