Pope Francis met with former Cuban President Fidel Castro on Sunday, along with his wife, sons, and grandsons, a Vatican spokesman said. Before the 40-minute meeting where the two exchanged books, the pope held Mass in Havana's Revolution Square for a crowd of 300,000, ABC News reports.
"God's holy and faithful people in Cuba is a people with a taste for parties, for friendship, for beautiful things," Francis said during Mass. "It is a people which marches with songs of praise. It is a people which has its wounds, like every other people, yet knows how to stand up with open arms, to keep walking in hope, because it has a vocation of grandeur."
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Two men and a woman were detained after throwing leaflets at the pontiff.
On Tuesday, Pope Francis will travel to the U.S. and make stops in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia.
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