Reuters/Havana

Pope Francis led a service in Havana’s Revolution Square yesterday and met with former leader Fidel Castro but warned Cubans against the dangers of ideology as their country enters a new era of closer ties with the US.
Tens of thousands of people were in the square where Cubans celebrate May Day beneath massive portraits of revolutionary leaders Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos built into the facades of state buildings.
The 78-year-old Argentine pontiff read a mostly religious homily but sprinkled it with criticism of “elitism” and ideology.
“Service is never ideological for we do not serve ideas, we serve people,” he said.
The event was attended by President Raul Castro and top members of the communist government.
Francis later met with Fidel Castro, who led Cuba’s 1959 revolution and then built a one-party state that improved health and education services for Cubans but also limits democratic freedoms and represses dissent.
Cuban police kept some dissidents from attending the service yesterday morning and pounced on others apparently attempting to hand out flyers near the plaza.
Francis also appeared to appeal to Cubans to look after each other as the country faces social changes and economic openings.
He said they should continue to be “at the service of the frailty of your brothers and sisters” and “not neglect them for plans which can be seductive, but are unconcerned about the face of the person beside you”.
The pope appealed to Colombia’s government and Marxist Farc guerrillas to ensure that nearly three years of peace talks in Cuba are successful in order to end their “long night” of war.
Many in the crowd waited for hours in the tropical heat, eager to hear the first Latin American pope speak to them in Spanish, their common language.
“Francis has come to bless this new union between Cuba and the US,” said Enrique Mesa, a 32-year-old tourism worker.
Between 30-40 dissidents were detained to stop them attending papal events, a dissident human rights group said.
Security agents wrestled two men and a woman to the ground at the edge of Revolution Square, then led them off, after they started shouting and tried to hand out flyers, a Reuters witness said.
Arriving on Saturday, Francis exhorted Cuba and the US to deepen their detente, and encouraged Cuba to grant more freedom to the Roman Catholic Church, which has re-emerged as a powerful force after suffering decades of repression.
“His visit is cause for hope in our aspirations for improvement,” said biologist Benito Espinoza, 41, at Revolution Square. “We are an optimistic people, but we have suffered for many years.”
Francis waved and greeted Cubans as he arrived at Revolution Square, delighting one family when he picked up and kissed a four-year-old girl Karen Correoso. “It’s a historic moment for her and for us,” said the girl’s aunt, Maria Teresa Gonzalez, 64, from a church in Matanzas city.
Many Cubans appreciate the pope for his role in the secret talks that led to last December’s breakthrough with Washington, when Castro and US President Barack Obama vowed to normalise relations and end half a century of Cold War-era animosity.
Francis will fly from Cuba to Washington tomorrow for meetings with Obama and addresses at the US Congress and United Nations.
Cuba will welcome any papal condemnation of the US economic embargo, which persists despite Obama’s policy change as only the US Congress can lift it. The Republican leadership in Congress has defied Obama’s calls to do so.
But Castro’s government will also be sensitive to any criticism of its one-party political system or repression of dissidents.
Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said most of the 30-40 opposition activists rounded up were in Santa Clara and Havana.
Among them were three dissidents whose detention kept them from approaching the papal residence on Saturday night, where they hoped to see the pope. They said they had been invited but a Vatican spokesman said he was not aware of any invitation to any group.