What Happened the First Time a Pope Visited Cuba
When Pope Francis begins his visit to Cuba Saturday, he will become the third pope to visit the communist nation. He'll encounter a country in a far different place than the one Pope Benedict XVI visited in 2012, or Pope John Paul II did on the first papal trip in 1998. Back then, TIME dubbed John Paul's meeting with Fidel Castro a "clash of faiths." Indeed, that visit was one of the last gasps of the Cold War era. Though the Iron Curtain had long since fallen, Cuba remained set in its Marxist ways, with no official appetite for organized Western religion. But the island had begun to show signs of warming to religionand the government seemed less eager to crack down. The pope's visit to Cuba was, TIME explained, an attempt to move that dial, In the American media, the trip was largely eclipsed by Bill Clinton's burgeoning Monica Lewinsky scandal. But it has since come to be seen as a milestone in the opening up of relations between Cuba and the rest of the worlda process that Pope Francis' visit will certainly continue. Read more on Time.com How the Vatican and Cuba Came Together, Read more from 1998, here in the TIME Vault Clash of Faiths