(BBC NEWS) Havana – Meanwhile, former President Fidel Castro has written that he is “happy” to meet the pope, in an article on the government’s website.
After arriving in the capital, Havana, the pope told a crowd he prayed for a Cuba “advancing along the ways of renewal and hope”.
Cuban officials have insisted that political reform is not on the agenda.
Marino Murillo, one of Castro’s vice-presidents and the “economics czar” in charge of liberalisation, told journalists the government was updating the Cuban economic model to make socialism sustainable.