Vatican official arrives in Cuba carrying message from pope

Published: 2006-02-16

HAVANA (CNS) -- Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, traveled to Cuba with a message for Cubans from Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Martino arrived in Havana Feb. 15 to attend the celebration by the Cuban bishops' conference marking the 20th anniversary of the Cuban National Ecclesial Conference, the first meeting of bishops permitted after the 1959 revolution. Pope Benedict's message to Cubans, addressed to Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino of Havana, repeated Pope John Paul II's hope, expressed at the end of his historic visit to Cuba in January 1998, that "Cuba would open itself to the world and the world would open itself to Cuba."

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