First stop, Havana: Pope Francis beings 10-day trip to Cuba and US

Today, Pope Francis begins a 10-day trip to Cuba and the United States, embarking on his first trip to the onetime Cold War foes after helping to nudge forward their historic reconciliation. He will be offering a show of solidarity with Cubans and making clear that Hispanics in the United States are the bedrock of the American church. Francis’s trip begins in Havana and will then travel to the eastern Cuban city of Santiago to pray at the sanctuary of Cuba’s patron saint and stop in the city of Holguin en route, showing his desire to visit the areas of Cuba that often get overlooked. That’s not to say there won’t be politics on the agenda: It will just take place behind closed doors.

The motive of the trip is to confirm the Catholic faith of Cubans and encourage a church that has suffered in the past decades.

Guzman Carriquiry, Vatican aide of the pope

Francis will be greeted as something of a hero to Cubans who rightly credit him with having helped restore diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. Francis issued a personal appeal to Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro last year to end 50 years of animosity, and later hosted the Cuban and U.S. delegations to finalize the deal. Francis arrives in Washington on Sept. 22 for the start of the U.S. leg of his trip, greeted at Andrews Air Force Base by the first family.

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