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Desmond Boylan / Reuters
Pope Benedict XVI and Cuba's President Raul Castro walk together after the pope's arrival in Santiago de Cuba on Monday afternoon.
SANTIAGO, Cuba – There was an air of excitement in Antonio Maceo Plaza here in this island’s second largest city as people anxiously awaited Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival Monday afternoon.
Santiago is the first stop on his three-day visit to the island. Just 12 miles outside of town, is the sanctuary of El Cobre, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, a tiny wooden statue that is revered by all Cubans – Catholic and non-Catholic alike – and which the pope is coming to see.
While Cuba’s communist government is ostensibly anti-religious, it is treating the papal visit like that of any other head of state. Granma, the Communist government newspaper, put Benedict’s visit on its front page Monday and every event of the visit will be televised and broadcast on state-run radio.
Most businesses were closed here today in anticipation of the big arrival. The pope will celebrate an open-air Mass Monday evening in the plaza which thousands are expected to attend.
Among those most excited is architect Juan Ramon Navarro, a 36-year-old father of two who designed the giant altar under which the pope will celebrate Mass.
Navarro explained that if you look at the altar from the sides, the 45-foot high arches create an "M" for the Virgin Mary. It is decorated in red, white and blue, just like the Cuban flag, and he said the canvas cover is meant to conjure up the image of Mary's skirt.
Kerry Sanders / NBC News
The open-air altar Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate mass in Santiago de Cuba on Monday.
“I am thrilled,” Navarro said about the finished product. "It's quite an honor, as you can imagine."
Battle to balance ideals
Catholic or not, many of Cuba’s 11 million citizens are hoping Benedict will push for greater economic and political freedoms on the island.
Since its 1959 revolution, which was centered here, Cuba’s Communist government has survived the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But now it is in a battle to balance its ideals – a socialist government that would care for its population from the cradle to the grave – with the realities of pressure from sanctions and an increasingly competitive world economy.
And into the breach, the church has increasingly stepped up to provide the social safety net, this despite the fact that only 10 percent of the population identify themselves as Catholics.
Government food rations here don't last the elderly an entire week. Instead, the Catholic Church now feeds and supplements medicine for the elderly.
Havana's Cardinal Jamie Ortega has also played an increasingly political role – recently he quietly helped negotiate the release of more than 100 jailed political dissidents.
Kerry Sanders / NBC News
A parishoner looks up at the the sanctuary of El Cobre, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, a tiny wooden statue that is revered by all Cubans - Catholics and non-Catholics a
The church does not flaunt its influence in Cuba out of a fear it will offend President Raul Castro, or his brother Fidel, and in the process lose all it has gained since Pope John Paul II visited 14 years ago.
But the church does not shy away from controversy either.
Prior to his arrival this afternoon, Pope Benedict told reporters on his plane from Rome that, "it is evident that Marxist ideology as it was conceived no longer responds to reality."
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GOD PROTECTS OUR POPE.
LIAR!!! Who is the UNHOLIEST OF all the vatican FOUL-25 years DUMB IS WHAT AGE I DO BELIEVE ALL clergy pedophiles EACH ONE BY ONE,,,ALL of them Pathetic Individuals who CHOSE THE chrystopholis castration method of "loyalty in WHO CAN you PREY ON NOW? THIS @!$%#IN' benedict the 14th, now is it? STILL THE SAME WICKED IDIOTIC LUNATIC THAT TOLD them under his debut as the benedict first of the 14th!!! this is a great time to FINALLY "SHOW" ANYTHING FROM BEHIND THOSE LOcked Vatican GATES....what happened??!!!THE YEAR OF THE IRON RABBIT SENT HER THUMPERS DOWN A YEAR AGO...THE Boy was Confessing All REVELATIONS ARE NOTHING BUT MENTAL RETARDATIONS!! did you really believe that @!$%#ING MURDERING PSYCHOTIC EXPECTED the loan he lent.. .the TRUTH he never laid a sight on but "commands" the end wil come in 2012. HAVE NO FEAR!! DHARMA IS HERE!!!It amazes Me...this papal Worst u see in the "patching" above...YOU SEE him hugging a lifelessstick disfigured apparition in his lap?this is the one that ENDED ANY AND ALL CHANCES THATAT AGE 25...1 AT A TIME..THE DESISCION TO ABANDON US ALL-for that? he is NO MORE!!! NOTHING NOWHERE .NO ONE BUT ONE WORD IN THE LANGUAGE U chose to incoherently inherit...the Loser Language of NO!!! benedict sits on that throne he claimed on that night they sent their torches frantically out of FEAR! NEVER HAVE they POSSESSED ANY CONTROL OVER even themselves...they burned EVERYTHING THAT WAS THERE IN TUNISIA...The TRUTH...IT WAS IN HIS EYES.IT WAS IN MY FATHER'S WONDERFUL SMILE. THE TRUTH WAS GIVEN TO them Once Again...but No Miracle was performed that thousands seen, fled their "enslavors", and STILL. @!$%#IN' JEW. ISRAEL-PALESTINE....The "jihad". the Easter Bunny doesnt come from a land of Lost to ALL...I KNOW. THE WORLD KNOWS I KNOW MORE THAN I LET OUT. THE TRUTH---ST. AUGUSTINE TOLD these vatican ingrates...IT'S ALLRIGHT. TAKE THIS "THE CITY OF GOD"...benedict seen the LIGHT that possibly might have led him and BritishJew DumbStocks out of "their Exile." NO. there is the King of No. BENEDICT the first POPE THE @!$%#ING DEAD LAST. enjoy the view of that throne....u wont get that kind of PANIC.....
o and lastly----HAS ANY ONE EVER BUTCHERED A CHICKEN FOR EATING.? U FIGURE CASTRATION MEANT THE TOGGLE STICK AND FAMILY JEWELS, RIGHT? NAY. AT 25 years dumb...individualyy and to themselves...front, sack and reamed. THAT'S WHAT their Code of "loyalty and faith" 'gives to themselves. It doesn't make a difference though, right? EXILE IS HERE. better than "Hell". GO @!$%# YOURSELF #14. u know who betrayed you...it was never US.
ALOHA!!!
PATTYCANE!!!!
Unintelligable frothing.
lots of hatred there Patrick
Patrick "Boca-sucia" perhaps?
In his speech he said: "Real progress requires an ethics that focuses on human beings and takes account of the most profound human needs"
I like that.
For those who are interested his arrival speech yesterday is at:
Typical government reaction:
“Cuban dissidents said they had been blocked from
attending ceremonies in a crackdown which had began this weekend and has left
at least 50 people detained, according to several dissidents.”