Cuba has long tied prisoner releases to appeals from the Vatican, with thousands of prisoners released ahead of each of the papal visits to the island by St. John Paul II in 1998, Pope Benedict ...

November 19: Castro visits the Vatican. Pope John Paul II reciprocates by agreeing to visit Cuba. April: Terrorists bomb a dance club in the Melia Cohiba, Havana's premiere hotel. A series of ...

Although Pope John Paul's January 1998 visit to ... from conducting prison visits in 1989. Cuba's refusal to allow human rights and humanitarian groups access to its prisons represents a failure ...

Life is precious," she said. Just last month before he began his visits to Cuba and the US, Pope Francis abruptly stopped his motorcade in the rain and asked his aide to bring to him the baby he ...