Three Popes have visited Cuba: Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Prime Minister Fidel Castro embraced Marxism-Leninism and greater ties with the Soviet Union.

[4] In December 1989, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, then president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (a former dicastery of the Roman Curia) visited Cuba to dialogue with Castro about church-state relations.

In July 1994 Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Central America, met with Castro in Havana.

The illegal, underground opposition say that the papacy's gentle criticisms of repression on the island have not and will not effect real political change in the country.

[5] When Pope Francis visited Cuba, he reiterated the Catholic Church's stance on freedom of religion, urging the government to allow Cubans the "freedom, the means and the space" to exercise their faith, and he quoted Cuban national hero José Martí's stance against "dynasties", possibly a reference to the Castro brothers' hold on power (though a Vatican spokesman said the pontiff's words were not in reference to current events.