Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYj8YORSG18
{O/C} To Rome where Cuba's president held talks with the Italian prime minister and had a private audience with Pope Francis.
As Sonya Artero reports, Raul Castro was so impressed with the pontiff, he just might return to the Catholic fold.
{SOT}
The younger brother of Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro spoke with the pope for nearly an hour.
Even though papal audiences on Sundays are extremely rare, Francis made an exception. He did so because Raul Castro asked to thank him personally for the Vatican's mediation between Cuba and the United States.
Sure enough, Castro reiterated it was the pope's help that led to December's historic resumption of diplomatic relations between the former foes after more than half a century of antagonism.
Francis then gave Castro a medal depicting St. Martin of Tours, knowing for caring for the destitute.
Then the Cuban leader was off to meet with the Italian prime minister. At a press conference with Matteo Renzi, Castro praised the pope's wisdom and modesty.
Pope Francis is due to visit both the U.S. and Cuba in September, and Castro promised to attend all his local masses.
In his words, Castro told the prime minister: "If the pope continues to make defending the poor a major goal of his papacy, I will return to the Catholic Church, and I am not kidding."
Both of the Castro brothers were baptised as Catholics.
The Church's activities were suppressed for decades after the 1959 revolution in Cuba. By the early 1990s, the Cuban government began loosening restrictions. And a visit by the late Pope John Paul II in 1998 inspired Fidel Castro to re-instate Christmas as a holiday.
Sonya Artero TVB news.
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