{"id":9706,"date":"2015-05-10T16:54:45","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T16:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=9706"},"modified":"2015-05-10T16:56:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T16:56:02","slug":"strange-new-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/strange-new-respect\/","title":{"rendered":"Strange New Respect"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"descamisados\"<\/a>BBC:<\/p>\n

Cuban President Raul Castro has said he was so impressed by a Vatican audience with Pope Francis that he might return to the faith he was born into.<\/p>\n

Mr Castro praised the pontiff’s wisdom, adding: “I will resume praying and turn to the Church again if the Pope continues in this vein.”<\/p>\n

He thanked the Pope for brokering a rapprochement between Cuba and the US.<\/p>\n

The communist leader had stopped at the Vatican after attending Russia’s World War Two Victory Day in Moscow.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church has maintained ties with Havana since the 1959 revolution. The Pope will visit Cuba on his way to the US in September.<\/p>\n

For Pope Francis, the restoration of relations between the US and Cuba – agreed during secret talks at the Vatican – has been a major diplomatic achievement, says the BBC’s David Willey in Rome.<\/p>\n

The US had imposed a trade embargo after Cuba’s revolution, which it began to lift late last year.<\/p>\n

After the 50-minute private audience on Sunday, Mr Castro told reporters: “The pontiff is a Jesuit, and I, in some way, am too. I studied at Jesuit schools.”<\/p>\n

After suggesting he might turn again to the Church, he added: “I mean what I say.”<\/p>\n

Both Mr Castro and his brother, revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, were baptised as Roman Catholics, but most Church activities were suppressed after the revolution.<\/p>\n

Francis will be the third Pope to travel to Cuba, following visits there by John Paul II in 1998 and Benedict XVI in 2012.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Contrary to what his fiercer critics like to claim, Pope Francis is not<\/em> a Marxist. He is more of Peronist (without the anti-clericalism!) a movement that saw itself as representing a ‘third way’ between conmmunism and capitalism. Under the circumstances it is no surprise that there may be quite a bit of the pope’s “wisdom” that the Cuban dictator can find to like. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC: Cuban President Raul Castro has said he was so impressed by a Vatican audience with Pope Francis that he might return to the faith he was born into. Mr Castro praised the pontiff’s wisdom, adding: “I will resume praying … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[900,1026,998,1114,403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9709,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9706\/revisions\/9709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}