HAVANA (Reuters) Nov. 29 – Cuban President Raul Castro attended a ceremony for the country’s first religious beatification on Saturday in another sign of warming relations between the Communist-ruled island and the Catholic Church…After Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolution in 1959, Cuba expelled priests and Catholics faced decades of official atheism. Ties improved after Cuba guaranteed religious freedom in 1992 and Pope John Paul II visited six years later.

Tags: beatification, Catholic church, Catholics, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Pope John Paul II, Raul Castro, Saints

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