{"id":48839,"date":"2015-05-11T10:20:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T02:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=48839"},"modified":"2015-05-11T10:23:51","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T02:23:51","slug":"castro-pope-francis-so-impressive-i-might-return-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/05\/11\/castro-pope-francis-so-impressive-i-might-return-to-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Castro: Pope Francis so impressive I might return to church"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\">\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.666667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/472839368?et=ulH13ALJQz17AXJd2R1dig&#038;viewMoreLink=on&#038;sig=jwwdg1jsAiJE9Mc1F9sXmd5D-QFBCTnsP0FeWAggeKU=&#038;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<div style=\"padding:0;margin:0 0 0 10px;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/472839368\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\">View image<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\">gettyimages.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>VATICAN CITY &#8212; Cuban President Raul Castro paid a call Sunday on Pope Francis at the Vatican to thank him for working for Cuban-U.S. detente &#8211; and said he was so impressed by the pontiff he is considering a return to the Catholic church&#8217;s fold.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>Bienvenido<\/em> (welcome)&#8221; Francis said in his native Spanish, welcoming Castro to his studio near the Vatican public audience hall. The Cuban president, bowing his head, gripped Francis&#8217; hand with both of his, and the two men began private talks. The meeting lasted nearly an hour, as the Argentine-born Francis and Castro spoke in Spanish.<\/p>\n<p>Francis will visit Cuba in September en route to the United States.<\/p>\n<p>After leaving the Vatican, Castro, the brother of Fidel, the revolutionary leader who brought the Communists to power in Cuba, gushed with praise for Francis.<\/p>\n<p>The pontiff &#8220;is a Jesuit, and I, in some way, am too,&#8221; Castro said at a news conference. &#8220;I always studied at Jesuit schools.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When the pope goes to Cuba in September, I promise to go to all his Masses, and with satisfaction&#8221; Castro said at a news conference at the office of Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, whom he met with after the Vatican talks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I read all the speeches of the pope, his commentaries, and if the pope continues this way, I will go back to praying and go back to the church, and I&#8217;m not joking,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>It was a startling assertion for the leader of a Communist country, whose crackdown on dissidents in the past had drawn sharp Vatican criticism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am from the Cuban Communist Party, that doesn&#8217;t allow (religious) believers, but now we are allowing it, it&#8217;s an important step&#8221; Castro said.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about Francis, Castro said he has been &#8220;very impressed by his wisdom, his modesty, and all his virtues that we know he has.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Castro had already publicly thanked Francis for helping to bring Havana and Washington closer together after decades of U.S. government policy of strict isolation of the Communist-ruled Caribbean island. On Sunday, he stepped up his praise on Francis&#8217; push for the two nations to put enmity aside and work for reconciliation for the benefit of Americans and Cubans.<\/p>\n<p>As he took his leave from the Vatican, Castro told journalists, &#8220;I thanked the pope for what he did.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the president also &#8220;laid out to the pope the sentiments of the Cuban people in the wait and preparation for his upcoming visit to the island in September.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After his meeting with Renzi, Castro expressed hope that his country would quickly see more fruits of the thaw between Cuba and the United States. &#8220;Maybe the (U.S.) Senate will take us off the list of terrorist nations&#8221; soon, Castro told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Francis gave Castro a medal depicting St. Martin of Tours, known for caring for the destitute.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With his mantle he covers the poor,&#8221; Francis told Castro, saying more efforts on behalf of the poor are needed.<\/p>\n<p>Fidel Castro met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 1996. That encounter helped pave the way for John Paul&#8217;s 1998 pilgrimage to Cuba, the first visit by a pontiff to the island. John Paul was also eager for Cuba to grant more visas for foreign priests to bolster the dwindling corps of clergy on the island.<\/p>\n<p>The Vatican&#8217;s general policy of opposing economic sanctions as a foreign policy tool carries appeal for Cuban leaders and people, after decades under a U.S. economic embargo. With the Vatican keen on protecting the interests of its Catholic followers under Cuban Communist rule, Pope Benedict XVI also visited the island.<\/p>\n<p>Castro told reporters that &#8220;we are trying to carry forward improvements of our political, social and cultural system. But it&#8217;s very difficult to do it without causing shocks, without leaving some in the street.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He came to Rome on his way back from celebrations in Moscow of the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View image | gettyimages.com VATICAN CITY &#8212; Cuban President Raul Castro paid a call Sunday on Pope Francis at the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":48840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[483,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","category-news-w","mauthors-frances-demilio","mauthors-the-associated-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}