Miguel Díaz-Canel’s meeting with Pope Francis, whose announcement circulated as a rumor in various media outlets until it was confirmed this Friday by the Catholic agency ACI Prensa, already has a date. A delegation from the island will pay a “courtesy visit” to the pontiff in the Vatican on June 20, before meeting in Rome with his Italian counterpart, Sergio Mattarella, and with the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
According to the agency, Díaz-Canel will visit the Pope next Tuesday morning, together with his wife, Lis Cuesta, and the foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, and then will hold a conversation with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The information had been advanced by the Blog Italian the seismographwhich also provided for a meeting between the Pope and the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The agency estimates that the visit will be “short-term and without protocol,” since it is not usual for the Vatican to receive official delegations that day of the week, which also means that the Cuban president will not be received with the usual honors of a head of state.
The agency estimates that the visit will be “of short duration and without protocol”, since it is not usual for the Vatican to receive official delegations that day of the week.
Nor is it likely that the Holy See will offer too many details about the audience, which will be private, and of which there has been no announcement from Havana. The Vatican made the appointment official after Francis was released from the Gemelli hospital, where he had been admitted on June 7 to undergo an operation.
Rome will be the first stop on Díaz-Canel’s trip to Europe. Then he will go to France, where he will participate in a world summit to establish a “New International Financial Pact”, an initiative of President Emmanuel Macron.
In its note, ACI Prensa reviews Havana’s relations with the Vatican and recalls that Díaz-Canel treated those who participated in the protests of July 11, 2021 (July 11) with an iron fist, and that he “responded to the demonstrations with a violent crackdown, brutally beating protesters and making arrests”.
The president’s meeting with Francisco also takes place after a delicate negotiation process that the Catholic Church has been promoting since 11J, with the aim of achieving the release of the more than 1,000 political prisoners imprisoned on the island. a “human relationships”of friendship, with Raúl Castro–, shipment to Havana, in January of this year, to Cardinal Beniamino Stella.
Stella, ambassador of the Holy See on the Island during the Special Period, spoke with the Government about the possibility of granting amnesty to the prisoners and allowing their departure from the country
Stella, ambassador of the Holy See on the Island during the Special Period, spoke with the Government about the possibility of granting amnesty to the prisoners and allowing their departure from the country, and for which he would have the support of several governments, including that of Spain. Havana’s response was timid, and he limited himself to stating that he would try to satisfy the concerns of both parties.
There were no apparent results, either, after the meeting in April Díaz-Canel with the Cuban Episcopal Conference, whose secretary confirmed to the international agencies that the bishops had put on the table the situation of political prisoners and the need for clemency from the Government, a petition that they had already sent to the authorities, indirectly, in their Christmas message in 2022. It is to be expected that the issue of political prisoners will also be handled by Francisco and Díaz-Canel on June 20, during their audience in Rome.
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