Pope Francis arrived here Saturday to a rapturous reception from ordinary Cubans and, drawing on the famous words of one of his predecessors, called on island nation to “open itself to the world” and on the world “to open itself to Cuba.”
Greeting him on the airport tarmac was the country’s communist president Raul Castro, who offered that in Cuba, “we exercise religious freedom as a right consecrated in our constitution.” They were doubtless welcome words for Francis but incongruous for many Cubans, who consider it’s a right more honored in the breach than the observance.
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