Castro and the Pope face up to better times

AFidel Castro did not kiss the Pope's ring but this minor detail was ignored in the emotion of the moment: the lider maximo had come to visit the pontifex maximus, opening up a new era in relations between the world's most powerful theocracy and one of its very few remaining communist states.

It was 10.45am yesterday when Castro's motorcade swept into the Vatican, and the Cuban leader was ushered up into the Pope's private apartments. A brief bow, a few words of greeting and John Paul II and Fidel disappeared into the library for talks which, the Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls said, focused on "normalisation of the conditions under which the Catholic Church works in Cuba" and "national and international reconciliation".

Castro also issued an invitation to the Pope to visit his Caribbean island. The Pope accepted, and is now widely expected to add a Cuban stopover to his itinerary for a pastoral visit to Brazil in October next year.

Yesterday's private audience was the culmination of several years of slow thaw in relations between the Holy See and Cuba. After decades of hostility, and harassment by Cuban authorities of Catholic clergy and organisations, the two countries got down to serious dialogue in 1989. In 1992 Cuba changed its constitution to describe the island as a lay, rather than an atheist state.

But it was not until last month, when the Vatican's "foreign minister" Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran met Castro in Havana, that a meeting between the Pope and the Catholic- educated Castro became a strong possibility.

Since his arrival in Italy four days ago for last week's World Food Summit, Castro has been locked with the Pope in what at times gave every appearance of a competition to appear more conciliatory.

The Pope kicked these goodwill overtures off in his inaugural speech to the summit, lashing out at trade embargoes which bring hunger to innocent civilians. The reference was clearly to US sanctions against Cuba which have been in place since 1962.

Castro, on the other hand, made sure that the press was well within hearing range when he stressed to Italian Premier Romano Prodi that "the revolution has created no martyrs amongst the men of the cloth".

In a meeting at the Italy Cuba Association, he confessed that "were I not a politician, I would take myself off to a monastery".

Despite the build-up, both Castro and the Pope betrayed no signs of great emotion when they finally met yesterday, and the Pope refrained from any of the embraces and lengthy handshakes that he often lavishes on visiting dignitaries. Details of contents of Castro's audience, and his ensuing meeting with Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, were, as is customary in the Vatican, kept a closely guarded secret, although it was not difficult to read between the lines of the official version handed down by the Vatican Press office.

"Normalising the conditions under which the Church works in Cuba" refers to the severe restrictions placed on visiting clergy and on Catholic aid organisations working in Cuba.

In a Press briefing, Mr Navarro Valls placed great emphasis on the fact that an island with the population of 11 million, where Catholics represent some 97 per cent, has only 200 priests ministering to its spiritual needs.

"International reconciliation", on the other hand, is a clear reference to Cuba's continuing difficult role on the world scene, and to the US trade embargo against it. Mr Navarro Valls claimed that the sanctions themselves were not explicitly discussed: "There was no need, and the Church's position was made perfectly clear at the World Food Summit," he said.

"National reconciliation" would seem to cover human rights abuses in Cuba but Castro, during his visit, has been keen to stress that - in the case of Cuba at least - such concepts are firmly in the eye of the beholder.

In a meeting with Italy's Foreign Minister, Lamberto Dini, on Monday, Mr Castro listed "the many initiatives undertaken in defence of the individual and the citizen," and underlined that Cuba's electoral system "has the consensus of the majority of our citizens."