Pope Meets Today with Fidel Castro

HAVANA TIMES, March 28 — Fidel Castro is scheduled to meet on Wednesday in Havana with Pope Benedict XVI, who already met on Tuesday with President Raul Castro.

Since the days before the arrival of the Pope to Cuba for a three-day visit, the Vatican had made it known that space could be found in Benedict’s agenda to meet with the former Cuban leader.

The announcement that a meeting had been fixed came from Fidel Castro himself in a commentary published Tuesday night in the online Cuban media.

“I decided to ask him [Benedict] for a few minutes of his very busy schedule when our foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, told us he would appreciate this modest and straightforward contact.”

The Pope will officiate an open-air mass in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution on Wednesday morning programmed for 9:00 a.m.

Later in the day Benedict is scheduled to leave for Rome.