Follow author Paul Moses as he gives insight and perspective on Pope Francis' journey to Cuba and the United States. The Brooklyn native is author of "The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace" and "An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York's Irish and Italians." A former Newsday editor and reporter, he is a professor of journalism at Brookyn College.

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Pope Francis broke new ground Sunday in the Catholic Church's long struggle to respond to a damaging clergy sex-abuse scandal with his unqualified promise to hold bishops accountable for their failures.
Francis has taken a number of steps to discipline bishops who failed to protect children, but the open-ended nature of his "promise of accountability for all" -- and his pledge to "follow the path of truth wherever it may lead" -- implied that he will go much further.
While the Catholic Church in the United States has made important moves to combat the problem, it has not held its upper echelon accountable.
Francis promised another course during his visit to Philadelphia when he told a small group of victims, "Clergy and bishops will be held accountable when they abuse or fail to protect children."
While his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI took a harder line against miscreant priests than did the previous pontiff, St. John Paul II, Benedict did not extend the crackdown to bishops who covered up the scandal of priests who repeatedly abused minors.
In the past, the Vatican's position was that canon law made it difficult for the pope to remove a bishop from leading a diocese.
But Francis approved creation of a Vatican tribunal in June to hear cases against bishops accused of covering up clergy sexual-abuse allegations. Shortly afterward, Archbishop John Nienstedt of Minneapolis-St. Paul resigned, two weeks after criminal charges were filed against his archdiocese for allegedly failing to protect children against abuse.
Francis also accepted the resignation earlier this year of Kansas City's Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted three years earlier of failing to report suspected abuse.
Last year, he replaced a bishop in Paraguay.
There are other bishops whose lapses are a matter of public record -- documented in civil and criminal court cases -- but who continue to enjoy their status as prelates.
"Now the question is, 'How quickly are you going to hold these bishops accountable?' " said Donna Doucette, executive director of Voice of the Faithful, an organization of lay Catholics.
"You can't let them sit there for years and years . . . Also, take away the titles of bishops who retired. We are looking to see that actual steps will follow the rhetoric."
The "pope of surprises" did indeed surprise many observers with Sunday's comments, as they contrasted with the sympathy he showed for the American Catholic bishops when he spoke to them Wednesday at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle during his stop in Washington, D.C.
He told the bishops then that he was aware "of the courage with which you have faced difficult moments" resulting from the scandal.
That prompted Dennis Coday, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, to write that "the message he delivered . . . puts him back to square one" in handling the sex-abuse crisis.
But Sunday, the editor of the liberal Catholic weekly -- which since the 1980s has been in the forefront of reporting on sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church -- said Francis' latest statements encouraged him.
"He's hearing the message," he said.
Coday said some bishops have responded effectively to the scandal. Unlike others, they aren't likely to blame plaintiffs' lawyers or the news media for their troubles, he said.
On the other hand, "There's a creeping complacency in the bishops who aren't being vigilant."
He said it was encouraging that Francis praised the victims for having the courage to come forward, and that the pope apologized for the church's failure to listen to them in the past.
In the long run, the pope's greatest contribution may be that he is taking on problems that created the conditions for abusive priests to be transferred from parish to parish, with their wrongdoing kept secret.
Francis' willingness to admit being wrong, his emphasis on transparency, his openness to dissenting opinions, his call for bishops to enter into dialogue with the people -- all of these run counter to the culture of clericalism that allowed the problem of sexual abuse to fester in the first place.

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From Francis, a 'promise of accountability' in sex-abuse scandal

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For Pope Francis, there was an important lesson to be found in looking into the faces of the families of first responders who died in the World Trade Center attack.
"Meeting them made me see once again how acts of destruction are never impersonal, abstract or merely material," he said Friday at the National September 11 Memorial &amp; Museum.
From the United Nations General Assembly to his Mass in Madison Square Garden and in his speech to Congress a day earlier, the pope urged his audiences to see the world's crises through the humanity of the individuals who suffer through them. It's a theme of his papacy, frequently highlighted in his American journey.
It was reflected not only in his speeches but also in the glow on his face when he connected in East Harlem with children at Our Lady Queen of Angels School and car washers who organized a union movement, and in Washington, D.C., with the homeless.
During his morning speech at the United Nations, Francis cautioned diplomats against being content "with the bureaucratic exercise of drawing up long lists of good proposals -- goals, objectives and statistical indicators."
Beyond all the plans and programs "we are dealing with real men and women who live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty, deprived of all rights," he said.
He asked the delegates to look at warfare in the same way:
"In wars and conflicts there are individual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die," he said. "Human beings who are easily discarded when our only response is to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements."
Sister Margaret Mayce, who represents the nongovernmental organization Dominican Leadership Conference at the UN, said there is a danger of focusing on statistics rather than people when problems are being discussed on such a broad scale.
"I think he's done a masterful job of bringing the conversation back where it belongs," said Mayce, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Amityville.
She said that one role for NGOs at the United Nations is to tell delegates -- who might lack a connection to the poor in their home countries -- that marginalized people have a right to participate in decisions that affect them.
"The pope is reminding the UN that what they're about is people, helping the people become 'dignified agents of their own destiny,' " she said. "Those are his words."
Francis brought this outlook both to the United Nations, which is famous for its bureaucracy, and to everyday New Yorkers as well.
In his Mass at Madison Square Garden, Francis spoke of how big-city life, with its "roar of traffic" and rapid change, can "conceal the faces of all those people who don't appear to belong," such as foreigners or the homeless.
"These people stand at the edge of our great avenues, in our streets, in deafening anonymity," he said. "They became part of an urban landscape which is more and more taken for granted, in our eyes, and especially in our hearts."
He also pointed out to members of Congress on Thursday that their own ancestors were immigrants who came to this country seeking a better life -- much as today's newcomers have.
"We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation," he said.
Francis made the Golden Rule a centerpiece of his speech to Congress, a person-to-person approach to public policy. "Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated," he said.
The Rev. Daniel P. Horan, author of "The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton," said the pope's encyclical "Laudato Si" held up St. Francis of Assisi, his namesake, as someone who refused to look at people as objects.
Horan, a Franciscan, said one reason for the saint's decision to live in poverty was that it moved him closer to the poor.
The pope's efforts to live in simplicity do the same, he said. That is seen even in his choice of a Fiat rather than a limousine for his transportation: "He's so accessible. He doesn't have tinted windows."
For Francis, as he said Friday night in a filled Madison Square Garden, finding Jesus is a matter of "learning to see."

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Pope Francis: Policy is all about people

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In a polite way, Pope Francis debunked months of overheated claims that he is "anti-capitalist" by repeating to Congress Thursday an overlooked passage in "Laudato Si," his encyclical on the environment. 
"Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world," he said. "It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good." 
Those who expected a Marxist-like scolding were wrong. Instead, Francis offered Congress a simple but challenging morality in his historic appearance on Capitol Hill: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." 
Underscoring that, Francis made time during his busy day to meet with 300 homeless people. It was a powerful symbolic moment before his departure for New York, where claims of more homeless people in the streets have in recent weeks stirred outcries of alarm from politicians and pundits. 
Francis was kind enough not to say that his words of appreciation for business can be readily found in the encyclical that some critics have scorned as socialist. His prepared text did cite the passage, paragraph 129. 
Interestingly, Francis dropped a more pointed passage about the economy that was in his prepared text: "If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance." 
His economic prescription was the Golden Rule. "If we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us," he said, pointing a finger at himself. 
"He wants to give ethical principles for discussion and dialogue over economic policy and he doesn't want to give specific injunctions," said Stephen Pope, professor of theology at Boston College. "This is very much a bridge-building speech." 
It is the flip side of a speech Francis gave to grassroots movements in Bolivia in July. That included the line that money is "the dung of the devil" -- an indictment of the "unfettered pursuit of money." 
Stephen Pope said that Francis wanted to recognize the advantages of the free market in his Washington speech while at the same time showing the need to see the economy from the viewpoint of the most vulnerable in society. 
"He doesn't say it in this way, but the danger of our culture is that we interpret economic activity in a very individualistic way," Pope said. "I think he wants to address the culture of individualism and prod us to do more to understand the concept of global solidarity." 
The two speeches converge in themes of compassion and justice, Pope said. "He speaks to the Congress of the United States as a priest. He speaks to the people of Bolivia as a prophet." 
Before arriving in Washington, Francis indicated he was aware of the "anti-capitalist" claims when he told reporters, "Maybe there's an impression I'm a little bit more lefty, but I haven't said a single thing that's not in the social doctrine of the church." 
Modern Catholic social teaching dates to an encyclical Pope Leo XIII issued in 1891 on labor and capital. Later popes built on it, creating a body of thought that is to the left of standard American debate on the economy. 
In his speech, Francis placed himself within the tradition by making a balanced use of its terms: "solidarity" -- which emphasizes the importance of the common good -- and "subsidiarity," which holds that decisions should be made as locally as possible. 
Catholic Republicans such as Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin like to highlight "subsidiarity" because it limits the role of the federal government (although it does not exclude it if a locality needs more help). "Solidarity" is the term Democrats like. 
Francis praised Dorothy Day, New York's great apostle of the rights of workers and the poor, as someone who exemplifies a Gospel-inspired passion to bring justice to the oppressed. 
Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement and died in 1980, was not a fan of big government aid programs and instead advocated working closely with the poor, person to person. 
It's the kind of "reciprocal subsidiarity" Francis prizes. As Fordham University theologian Maureen A. Tilley put it: "She lived with the people she served."

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Polite pope answers critics on economy

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If Pope Francis' advice for the nation's Catholic bishops can be boiled down to one word, it's "dialogue."
His call yesterday for dialogue showed once again that this is the direction he wants the church to go -- engagement rather than condemnation, experts said.
"This is a very clear, if subtle, call to end the culture-warrior move by some American bishops," said Terrence Tilley, a professor of theology at Fordham University. He added: "Negativity must end. That's what he's saying, in my opinion."
Dialogue has been a signature word for Pope Francis. "Dialogue is our method," he told the bishops assembled at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, going on to say, "The path ahead, then, is dialogue among yourselves, dialogue in your presbyterates, dialogue with laypersons, dialogue with families, dialogue with society. I cannot ever tire of encouraging you to dialogue fearlessly."
Francis said the bishops should enter this dialogue with humility, avoiding "harsh and divisive language." Without that, he said, "We fail to understand the thinking of others," or to realize that the person the church wants to reach "counts more than their positions, distant as they may be from what we hold as true and certain."
That doesn't mean the pope asked bishops to back off from controversial issues. He spoke of "the innocent victim of abortion, children who die of hunger or from bombings, immigrants who drown in the search for a better tomorrow," and added, "It is wrong, then, to look the other way or to remain silent."
But, Tilley said, Francis does not want the church to be "the voice of condemnation."
Fifty years ago, bishops issued a document at the Second Vatican Council that urged the church to open itself to the modern world through dialogue -- an optimistic, constructive engagement. But as dissent engulfed church authorities in the decades after the council, "dialogue" took on a new tone for some.
In 1996, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago proposed a Common Ground Initiative to bring together liberal and conservative factions through dialogue. Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law issued a stinging statement in response.
"The fundamental flaw in this document is its appeal for 'dialogue' as a path to 'common ground,' " Law said. "The church already has 'common ground.' It is found in sacred Scripture and tradition, and it is mediated to us through the authoritative and binding teaching of the magisterium."
Four other American cardinals also disputed the plan from Bernardin, who died later the same year.
Nearly two decades later, Francis has taken this onetime stumbling block of "dialogue" and made it a cornerstone of his papacy. He didn't pull rank Wednesday, but instead told the bishops, "I have no wish to tell you what to do, because we all know what it is the Lord asks of us."
It was an appeal to conscience.
Tilley said that many priests and laypeople, including lay theologians, would like to see Bernardin's "common ground" approach rejuvenated. Some bishops would want to as well, he added, "but it's not clear how many of them would want to do so."
Tom Beaudoin, a theology professor at Fordham University, said the Catholic Church needs to take new steps to reach the large numbers of people who have disconnected themselves from the church.
"I read 'dialogue' there as a practice of hospitality, and that hospitality should be the frame for ministry," he said.
Beaudoin, an expert on inactive Catholics, said it's possible for church leaders to speak out on issues and still be open to dialogue: "There is a way to talk about advocacy for positions in a way that signals vulnerability and willingness to be frank and to hear frankness from the other side."

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Pope Francis to bishops: 'Dialogue is our method'

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Well before his arrival Tuesday in Washington, Pope Francis had altered how the Catholic faith intersects with the nation's politics by viewing abortion as part of a range of problems affecting human life and not as the No. 1 issue.
That focus on other concerns, such as economic inequality and climate change, has riled conservatives. "Maybe there's an impression I'm a little bit more lefty, but I haven't said a single thing that's not in the social doctrine of the church," the pope told reporters on his flight from Cuba to Washington.
For American Catholics, this debate is familiar. The pope has essentially elevated ideas similar to those that the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin championed in the 1980s and 1990s -- only to be dismissed by conservative prelates.
In 1983, Bernardin advocated a "consistent ethic of life" that balanced abortion with concern about war, poverty, capital punishment and exploitation of immigrants. He met strong opposition.
"It became a target for conservative right-to-lifers who blamed all the difficulties in opposing abortion on the fact that this gave a lot of Catholics an alibi for voting for pro-choice politicians," said Peter Steinfels, author of "A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America."
Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, emerging at the time as the most outspoken of the nation's big-city bishops, argued that the "consistent ethic of life" -- sometimes referred to as the "seamless garment" -- would help politicians to justify voting for abortion rights.
The following year, his exchanges with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo over Catholic politicians' responsibility to oppose abortion became national news. In the years to come, an increasing number of bishops would deny communion to Catholic politicians who favored abortion rights, no small concern for a candidate in a country where about 1 in 5 people identify as Catholic.
Bernardin, before his death in 1996, urged dialogue between the conservative and liberal wings of the church. He met with a lacerating response: Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law and other leading archbishops bluntly rejected the appeal for dialogue as an opening for dissenters.
But "dialogue" is a favorite term of Pope Francis, and early in his papacy he said in an interview, "We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods."
Bernardin's approach was back in a big way -- although, experts say, it had never faded away entirely.
Steinfels said Bernardin wanted to prevent the church from being pigeonholed as favoring either conservatives or liberals in American politics. The cardinal's solution was "a concern for life at all stages and in all conditions," he said.
Charles Camosy, a professor of theology at Fordham University and author of "Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation," said Francis "has brought the consistent ethic [of life] into people's consciousness in ways that it wasn't before."
He pointed to the pope's frequent denunciations of a "throwaway culture." In his encyclical "Laudato Si," Francis links that term to everything from environmental degradation, human trafficking and consumerist greed to "eliminating children because they are not what their parents wanted."
There is no doubt Francis is opposed to abortion, but for him, it's all connected. "Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion," he wrote.
The pope's visit comes as Washington is once again caught up in the politics of abortion. On Tuesday, abortion opponents failed to get the 60 votes in the Senate needed to advance a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation.
The extent to which Catholic bishops had prioritized the abortion issue was shown in 2009 when dozens of them assailed the University of Notre Dame for allowing President Barack Obama, who favors abortion rights, to speak at the commencement and receive an honorary degree.
In the commencement speech, Obama recalled his days as a community organizer in Chicago and how much he admired Bernardin. "He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads -- unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty and AIDS and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war," he said. "And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together, always trying to find common ground."
If the president seems especially happy to see Pope Francis, that may be the reason why: The pope has highlighted the issues Bernardin once put forward.
The "mustard seed" of faith
He'll soon address Congress and the United Nations, but Pope Francis was content during his three-day visit to Cuba to come across like a humble country priest who talks about the faith as everyday people experience it.
In Santiago -- birthplace of Cuba's communist revolution -- he spoke of revolution as he celebrated Mass on Tuesday morning at the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre. But it was a change of heart he spoke of, not a change of regimes.
"We are asked to live the revolution of tenderness as Mary, our Mother of Charity, did," he said.
As he spoke, he stood in the sanctuary before a small statue of the Virgin of Charity that evokes deep emotion in the Cuban people, including those in the exile community. It was a poignant moment that reflects the great value Francis has always placed on the piety of the people.
"The pope is very much attuned and sensitive to the idea of a lived religion, how people actually practice their belief," said Joseph Sciorra, author of "Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City."
Francis -- whose statements on capitalism, dysfunction in the church and environmental degradation have made so many headlines -- went to Cuba as a pastor who meets his people where they are.
And the Virgin of Cobre is very much a part of who Cubans are.
According to church tradition, three boys -- two native people and a black slave -- found the 16-inch statue floating on a board at sea around 1600. Once enshrined in their village, it began to draw pilgrims.
This devotion emerged from the people, and drew strong support from the institutional church.
Sciorra said the image of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre is commonly found in botanicas in the New York area and in Cuban-American homes and restaurants throughout the United States, especially in Florida and New Jersey.
Pope Francis' focus on the pastoral over the political during his journey to Cuba was to be expected, said Margaret Crahan, director of the Cuba Program for the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.
She said it would be unrealistic to expect that Cubans would react to Francis as Poles once did when St. John Paul II's visit helped to rally their opposition to Poland's communist government. While the church was strong in Poland even after decades of communist rule, it is weak in Cuba -- and was even before Fidel Castro took control of the government in 1959, she said.
Crahan, who has traveled to Cuba more than 50 times since 1973, said Cuba's bishops have chosen to seek gradual change in their country rather than challenge the government directly.
"They really do want to evangelize the country," she said. "They believe that the way to change Cuba is to change minds and hearts."
Francis, Crahan said, went there to support them in that effort. And Tuesday, he celebrated those who have helped the faith to persevere in Cuba: the grandmothers.
"They kept open a tiny space, small as a mustard seed," Francis said, "through which the Holy Spirit continued to accompany the heartbeat of this people."

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Pope pushes the envelope of usual Catholic concerns in U.S.

Pope -- cropped

He'll soon be addressing Congress and the United Nations, but for now Pope Francis has been content on his journey to come across like a humble country priest who talks about the faith as everyday people experience it.
"The pope is very much attuned and sensitive to the idea of a lived religion, how people actually practice their belief," said Joseph Sciorra, author of "Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City."
For Cuban Catholics, the emotional heart of that "lived religion" can be found in the shrine to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, which Francis visited Monday night and where he was to celebrate Mass this morning before flying to Washington, D.C., later in the day.
On Monday morning, he referred to the Virgin of Cobre in his homily at Mass in the Plaza of the Revolution in Holguín and also spoke of Jesus as a font of mercy whose gaze changed the heart of the greedy tax collector Matthew.
His style of engagement came through on Sunday evening when he departed from prepared remarks to better respond to young people who had spoken to him at a cultural center in Havana. He told them the church shouldn't enclose itself in ideology or "moral regulations," according to a translation by the Zenit news service. "Open hearts. Open minds," he said. "If you are different than me, why don't we talk?"
Francis -- whose statements on capitalism, dysfunction in the church and environmental degradation have made so many headlines -- is in Cuba as a pastor who meets his people where they are.
And the Virgin of Cobre is very much a part of who Cubans are.
According to church tradition, three boys -- two native people and a black slave -- found the 16-inch statue floating on a board at sea around 1600. Once enshrined in their village, it began to draw pilgrims.
This devotion emerged from the people, and drew strong support from the institutional church. It also became closely tied to the national identity of the Cuban people. As Francis noted when he arrived in Havana on Saturday, veterans of the country's 1898 war of independence were the ones who successfully petitioned Pope Benedict XV to declare Our Lady of Charity the nation's patroness 100 years ago.
Sciorra said the image of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre is commonly found in botanicas in the New York area and in Cuban-American homes and restaurants throughout the United States, especially in Florida and New Jersey.
Pope Francis' focus on the pastoral over the political was to be expected, said Margaret Crahan, director of the Cuba Program for the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.
She said it would be unrealistic to expect that Cubans would react to Francis as Poles once did when St. John Paul II's visit helped to rally their opposition to Poland's communist government. While the church was strong in Poland even after decades of communist rule, it is weak in Cuba -- and was even before Fidel Castro took control of the government in 1959, she said.
Crahan, who has traveled to Cuba more than 50 times since 1973, said Cuba's bishops have chosen to seek gradual change in their country rather than challenge the government directly.
"They really do want to evangelize the country," she said. "They believe that the way to change Cuba is to change minds and hearts."
Francis, Crahan said, is there to support them in that effort. As the pope put it in his homily Monday: "I know the efforts and the sacrifices being made by the Church in Cuba to bring Christ's word and presence to all." He is pushing along that effort.

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Pope in Cuba: A simple country priest

Pope Francis in Cuba -- CROPPED

Pope Francis spoke Sunday of a famed Cuban priest exiled to New York in the 19th century as he exhorted young people to find a better future by remembering their country's spiritual heritage.
Father Felix Varela is known in New York for helping poor Irish immigrants as pastor of Transfiguration Church on Mott Street and for serving as vice-chancellor of the growing diocese.
In his homeland, he was a brilliant scholar who ran afoul of Spanish authorities when he advocated Cuban independence. With a price on his head, he boarded a boat for New York in 1823 at the age of 35 to escape a death sentence.
Francis referred to Varela as he spoke of how to find a path of hope.
"We need to remember who we are, and in what our spiritual and moral heritage consists," he said. "This, I believe, was the experience and the insight of that great Cuban, Father Felix Varela."
Varela believed the church should be an advocate for human rights, said historian Patrick McNamara, who profiled the priest in his book "New York Catholics: Faith, Attitude &amp; the Works."
He called the priest "a champion of human freedom and the rights and dignity of the individual." Varela was so brilliant as a scholar that he was allowed to join the faculty of his seminary even before he graduated, McNamara said. The priest's texts were used in seminaries throughout Latin America.
In New York, Varela was enormously popular among the Irish because of his help for immigrants, said Msgr. Thomas Shelley, a church historian who authored the bicentennial history of the Archdiocese of New York.
"He reached out to these people," Shelley said. "He welcomed them as immigrants. He was just a very good pastor."
In Cuba, both Marxists and Catholic Church leaders invoke Varela, McNamara said, noting that the late Cardinal John O'Connor of New York once declared that everything Varela did was "founded in his identity as a Christian and a Catholic."
Two popes -- St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI -- made a similar point in their trips to Cuba. Francis has added his voice to that.
What remains is a decision on whether Varela's cause for sainthood will move ahead in the canonization process. In 2012, Varela was declared "Venerable," an important step.
Images of 'Che' and Christ
Two enormous images stretched above Havana's Plaza de la Revolución as Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Sunday morning: a likeness of communist hero "Che" Guevara, and a gleaming banner of Jesus as the Divine Mercy.
Francis' homily was not overtly political, but he gently guided his flock away from political ideology and toward a God of mercy.
"I think that the images of Jesus and Che are really important to contextualize what he says, that service is not about ideology, it's about human beings," said Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, a professor of religious studies at the University of Miami who has studied religion in Cuba.
Speaking on a gospel that depicts Jesus' disciples arguing about who among them was most important, Francis offered a Christian ethic for merciful leadership rooted in service to flesh-and-blood people.
"Service always looks to their faces, touches their flesh, senses their closeness and even, in some cases, `suffers' in trying to help," he said. "Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people."
These are longtime themes for Francis, formed in the crucible of his experience as leader of the Jesuits in Argentina during a vicious war of political ideologies in the late 1970s. If the pope intended to aim that remark at Cuban President Raúl Castro, who was in the congregation, he didn't say so. 
Instead, the pope offered his vision of leadership: "Christians are constantly called to set aside their own wishes and desires, their pursuit of power, and to look instead to those who are most vulnerable." He added that "We need to be careful not to be tempted by another kind of service, a `service' which is `self-serving.' "
The image of Jesus as Divine Mercy that hovered over the square was a favorite of Saint John Paul II, who declared the Sunday after Easter to be Divine Mercy Sunday. The devotion was spread in the 1930s by a Polish nun, Sister Faustina Kowalska, whom John Paul canonized in 2000.
For Francis, Divine Mercy serves "to heal every wound and to hasten concrete gestures of reconciliation and peace among the Nations," as he said in April.
It's no surprise that he is invoking that refrain in Cuba. Said Maldonado: "If there is one theme to this papacy, I think it's mercy."
An important meeting
They may have been some of the quieter moments of his Sunday, but the afternoon meeting Pope Francis held with Cuban leaders was an important one as he likely sought concessions from a government that tightly controls the practice of religion.
"The regime has not ceded much ground" in previous negotiations with the Catholic Church or the Obama administration, said Eusebio Mujal-Leon, a professor of government at Georgetown University who has studied Cuban politics and the Catholic Church. "Whether the government will cede airspace, radio-wave space for religious ceremonies, whether they will allow after-school religious instruction. Those are, I suspect, on the agenda."
Given the government's strong hand in regulating religion, space of all kinds is an issue for houses of worship in Cuba. Sunday morning will mark the third time a pope has been permitted to celebrate Mass in Havana's Revolution Square, but "it's still significant in a sense that the government is ceding the public space in a way that it doesn't to anyone else," Mujal-Leon said.
At the same time, he said, the church faces many restrictions.
There are varying schools of thought among Cuban bishops, Mujal-Leon said, on how hard the church should try to negotiate with Cuban President Raul Castro. Cuba's Cardinal Jaime Ortega has favored negotiation, and has been criticized as being too close to the government. Some bishops have "grown leery of too close an engagement," he said.
One issue important to Ortega is getting space to open Catholic schools, said the Rev. Drew Christiansen, a professor of ethics and global human development at Georgetown University. The schools would issue business degrees and include instruction on Catholic social teachings.
"The relationship between the church and government has gone up and down," Christiansen said.
The Catholic Church has long advocated an end to the United States' embargo against Cuba, and Catholic bishops in the United States have periodically addressed the issue in Washington. But the church's ability to win concessions from the Cuban government has been limited -- and it probably doesn't help that few Cuban Catholics are regular churchgoers.
Mujal-Leon said that even before the 1959 revolution succeeded, Catholicism was not felt as intensely in Cuba as in other Latin American countries.
"Then Catholicism was hammered . . . it developed a kind of bunker mentality and was isolated," he said. After the Cuban government lost support from the Soviet Union, it began in the 1990s to reconsider many of its relationships and permitted the papal visits.
Francis' approach is dialogue and, Christiansen said, "He's never had problems talking to communists. His own boss when he took his first job [as a chemist] was a very active communist . . . They've continued to be good friends."
Francis has something more -- the advantage of having helped Cuba achieve diplomatic relations with the United States.
"He is a bridge-builder," said Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, professor of religious studies at the University of Miami. "Everything that he does, particularly when it comes to Cuba, is a gesture of reconciliation and bridge-building."

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Pope invokes exiled priest as spiritual 'champion' for young Cubans

35 cuba pope /lii

From the revolutionary José Martí to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Pope Francis evoked hallowed symbols of the Cuban people as he arrived Saturday in a country that is mostly Catholic but has relatively few churchgoers after more than five decades of communist rule.
It was veterans of Cuba's 1898 War of Independence who, "moved by sentiments of faith and patriotism," wanted Our Lady of Charity to be the new nation's patroness, Francis said during a welcoming ceremony at José Martí International Airport in Havana.
He added, "The growing devotion to the Virgin is a visible testimony of her presence in the soul of the Cuban people."
The pope also cited Martí, a poet and beloved Cuban hero who gave his life in the fight for independence, saying that Martí dreamed the country would be "a point of encounter for all peoples to join in friendship."
Francis did some bridge-building himself, asking President Raúl Castro "to convey my sentiments of particular respect and consideration to your brother Fidel" -- who had shut Catholic churches and driven out priests and sisters after the Cuban revolution.
From Francis' opening remarks, themes of political reconciliation and evangelization began to emerge.
Even as relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban government slowly improve, the task ahead for church leaders is formidable: Sixty percent of the Cuban population is Catholic but, according to the organization Aid to the Church in Need, just 2 percent attend Mass regularly.
The pope sought to call Cuban Catholics back to their historical connection to the church. He noted that he will go "as a son and pilgrim" to the shrine of the Madonna at El Cobre, near Santiago.
"He's really evoking an image of Mary that is very tied to Cuban national identity. Both on the island and in the diaspora, she is the patroness of Cuba, whose devotion rose to prominence during the struggle for independence," said Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, professor of religious studies at the University of Miami and author of "Afro-Cuban Theology." "And she's a Catholic religious symbol that has in many ways embodied the heart of Catholicism on the island and the perseverance of Catholicism on the island."
Francis has long identified with such devotions that emerge from the people, and they offer a channel for him to reach those who have maintained religious traditions but have little connection to the church.
The pope, due to arrive in Washington on Tuesday, comes to Havana with the goodwill of having played a key role in helping Cuba and the U.S. re-establish diplomatic relations.
"Just as he enabled the U.S. and Cuba to get together diplomatically, he's connecting his trip to the two places to remind Americans, and especially those critics of détente, that the U.S. belongs to the Americas and Cuba is a part of the Americas that's been made to suffer because of U.S. policy," said the Rev. Drew Christiansen, a professor at Georgetown University and former editor of America magazine.
Francis alluded to the United States in his remarks, saying that normalizing relations "is a sign of the victory of the culture of encounter and dialogue."
Still, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported this year, "Serious religious freedom violations continue in Cuba, despite improvements for government-approved religious groups."
Religion is strictly regulated through the Office of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. The agency said independent evangelical churches continue to face a great deal of harassment from the government, with arrests of leaders.
The registered churches, including the Catholic Church and major Protestant denominations, have seen a slow improvement in relations. The commission added that the Catholic Church was permitted last year to build its first new church in Cuba in more than 55 years.
"They are two institutions that are cautiously in dialogue with each other, and I think that very slowly, the Catholic Church has become a stronger presence on the island," Maldonado said. "Very slowly, the Cuban government has allowed the church to become that presence. I think they're moving very carefully, and will continue to do so."

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