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Castro asks pope to visit Cuba
HAVANA, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- Cuban leader Fidel
Castro has invited Pope Benedict XVI to
visit the communist island, the Italian
news agency ANSA reports.
Castro extended the invitation to the pope
via Cardinal Raffaele Martino, who was visiting
Cuba as an official representative of the
Catholic Church.
The invitation follows the popes recent
suggestion for Cuba to "open its heart"
to God and the rest of the world.
The late Pope John Paul II made the first
papal visit to Cuba in 1998, around the
same time that Castro granted some rights
to the Catholic Church in Cuba, ANSA noted,
though not many.
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