Cuba remains the only nation in the Americas where the church cannot operate its own K-12 schools, and it's no secret the island's bishops want more access to the state-controlled airwaves.
Pope Francis on Monday praised the sacrifices made by Cuba's Catholic Church to work on the island as he visited the home region of communist leaders Fidel and Raúl Castro.
HAVANA, Cuba – Pope Francis met Sunday with Fidel and Raúl Castro, the brothers who have ruled Cuba since its 1959 revolution, after celebrating an outdoor mass attended by hundreds of thousands.
HAVANA, Cuba – Pope Francis delivered mass Sunday before hundreds of thousands of people on Havana's iconic Revolution Square, calling Cubans to serve the downtrodden and warning them that "service is never ideological."
Certain U.S. businesses will now be permitted to open offices and bank accounts in Cuba, establish joint ventures with some Cuban government entities and hire Cubans to work for them under major regulatory changes announced by the Obama administration Friday.
The regular bedlam of long ticket lines and spinning luggage machines at the Miami International Airport got an extra charge of emotion on the eve of Pope Francis's visit to Cuba, as hundreds of Cuban Americans prepared to make the hop across the Florida Straits on Friday.
Before he lands in the United States on Sept. 22, Francis will arrive in Havana on Sept. 19 for a four-day, three-city tour of Cuba that will put a spotlight on his political and diplomatic skills as never before. His challenge: to accelerate the process of reconciliation between the United States and Cuba charted by John Paul II and push the Castro government to hasten and deepen the pace of change on the island.
HAVANA — The Cuban government said it plans to pardon 3,522 prisoners over the next 72 hours as a "humanitarian" gesture ahead of Pope Francis' visit to the island beginning next week. But the announcement appeared to rule out pardons for at least some of the dozens of inmates that rights groups consider political prisoners.
The action comes amid worries of a brain drain of Cuban medical professionals as the Communist-ruled island loosens long-time restrictions on emigration.
