Pope John Paul II will make his long-awaited first trip to Cuba on Jan. 21-25 of 1998, to celebrate four Masses in four cities of the last Western nation under communist rule.
``Messenger of peace and hope,'' Cardinal Jaime Ortega said Friday in announcing details of the five-day papal trip. Cuba's Roman Catholics are preparing, he added, ``with faith and lively enthusiasm.''
Ortega announced that the pontiff will celebrate ``open and public'' Masses in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Camaguey and Santa Clara and will carry out ``other activities'' that will be announced later.
The Cuban Communist Party's Granma newspaper reported Friday that the pope's activities will include a meeting with President Fidel Castro.
John Paul has met with the heads of state in virtually every country he has visited in his 18-year papacy. He is also expected to meet with Catholic students, activist families and political dissidents.
A papal trip to Cuba, the only major Latin American nation he has not visited, was first discussed in 1989, but Castro put it off as communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
The topic arose again last summer and quiet negotiations led to a papal audience for Castro while he was in Rome to attend a world summit on food supplies in November. At that time, Castro issued an official invitation for a papal visit this year.
Vatican officials said in January, however, that the pope's heavy schedule could not accommodate the visit until early 1998, saying the exact dates of the trip awaited church and government approval.
Friday's announcement came shortly after the first meeting of the church-government committee coordinating the visit. Bishop Emilio Aranguren of Camaguey heads the church side and Caridad Diego, of the religious issues office of the Communist Party's Central Committee, heads the other.
The lead time of nearly a year in the announcement of the exact dates of the trip underscored the significance that both Castro and the Cuban Catholic Church attach to the papal visit.
Castro's government jailed and deported scores of priests and seized church properties in the 1960s, was officially atheist until the mid-1980s and until recently barred practicing Catholics from joining the Communist Party.
But in the past six years, the Cuban government has tried to improve relations with the church, giving visas to some 50 foreign missionaries and allowing the church to carry out charitable activities, publish pamphlets and sponsor seminars on topics such as ethics and economics.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald