Pope cheered across Cuba Pope says Mass in east Cuba on anniversary of his calling

Pope cheered across Cuba

By Jaime Hamre and Philip Pullella

HOLGUIN, Cuba - Pope Francis heads to eastern Cuba to celebrate the second Mass of a trip that has earned him praise for aiding the Communist rulers' rapprochement with Washington.

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  World | Mon Sep 21, 2015 12:16pm EDT
  

  
  

  Pope says Mass in east Cuba on anniversary of his calling

  HOLGUIN, Cuba | By Jaime Hamre and Philip Pullella
  On a special anniversary for him, Pope Francis celebrated Mass in east Cuba on Monday on the last full day of a trip where he has been praised for aiding rapprochement between the communist government and the United States.Two predecessors have visited Cuba, but Francis was the first pope to visit Holguin, capital of the province where the Castro brothers and leaders of Cuba, Fidel and Raul, grew up. He said a Mass for tens of thousands of people in sweltering heat.
  Sept. 21 was the day in 1953 when the Argentine pope said he first felt a calling from God.
  The then 17-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio was heading to meet friends for a picnic marking the start of spring in the southern hemisphere when he felt an urge to enter a church he was passing in Buenos Aires.
  It was there that he felt a strange pull. "I can't say what is was but it changed my life," he told one biographer.
  That took place on the feast of St. Matthew and the pope dedicated his Holguin homily to the Bible story of the conversion of the former tax collector who decided to follow Jesus Christ.
  Holguin is a center of Cuban music and the Mass was accompanied by lively Caribbean sounds.
  On nearly every block, posters welcoming the pontiff adorned doors and telephone poles, while bike-taxis and horse-drawn carriages traversed below the yellow-and-white flags of the Vatican, fluttering alongside Cuba's red, white, and blue.
  

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  The government of President Raul Castro, who attended the Holguin Mass, had hoped the 78-year-old Francis would explicitly condemn the still-intact U.S. economic embargo against Cuba before leaving on Tuesday for Washington.
  He has not done so yet but on arrival on Saturday, he did urge the old Cold War foes to deepen their detente after this year's restoration of relations, which the Vatican mediated.
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