After a nearly eight year papacy, Benedict XVI will officially cease being the Bishop of Rome at 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT), when the Holy See vacancy begins, a period that starts from the resignation or death of a pontiff and continues until the election of his successor.

“I do not neglect the cross, but will remain in a new way for the Crucified Lord; I remain in the service of prayer,” Benedict said last evening before more than 150,000 parishioners gathered in St. Peter’s Square to attend his last public audience.

On February 11, the Vicar of Christ announced that he could no longer bear the physical burden related to management of the Holy See and expressed his willingness to resign from his papacy that began in April 2005.

In the afternoon, at 16:55 local time (15:55 GMT) in San Damacio courtyard he will receive the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, for the last time, and then will leave by helicopter for Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the popes.

Shortly before announcing his resignation today, Benedict XVI said goodbye to the cardinals present at the Vatican.

The 85 year old pope spoke in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace with the cardinals who traveled to the capital to attend to the conclave of 117 prelates in the next few days, responsible for electing a new head of the Catholic Church.

In his speech at Jose Marti International Airport, the head of State stressed the existence of “many deep coincidences, but, of course, we do not think the same about all matters.”

“The Cuban people, with education, listened with attention every single word said by the Pope”; said Raul shortly before the departure of Benedict XVI to Rome.

Prensa Latina releases the speech by Raul Castro at the airport.

His Holiness:

Since your arrival in Cuba, our people has welcomed you, and now we say good bye with feelings of respect and affection.

Your visit has taken place in an atmosphere of mutual understanding. The meeting with Cubans has given you the opportunity to know us better and to verify the correctness of our purposes.

Cuba main objective is the full dignity of human beings. We are aware that this, is not only built on material basis, but also on spiritual values such as generosity, solidarity, a sense of justice, altruism, mutual respect, honesty and truth.

Creating common good was a principle we learned from Father Felix Varela. Then, Jose Marti wrote that “to be educated is the only way to be free” and called us “to conquer all the justice.”

We give supreme importance to the family, we encourage all that praises it, and we recognize parents role in children education. We take care of children as our greatest hope and encourage the youth, without paternalism, to participate in a free and creative way in the achievements of our society.

We recognize the patriotic contribution of Cuban immigration; from the decisive contribution to our independence of tobacco growers from Tampa and Key West and all those who supported José Martí aspirations, to those who fight against those who attack Cuba and manipulate immigration with political purposes.

We have made long efforts towards the full normalization of relations between Cuba and its immigrants; who love their country and their families, and we will persist in those efforts with our nation common will.

This is a just people that prides itself on the virtues of its five sons, who are condemned for faighting against terrorism and for defending the truth, which accompanies them every minute of their undeserved imprisonment and shares the feelings of their families who suffer.

Our country is satisfied to be among those who have done most for life, freedom, and human dignity.

We share the certainty that only mobilizing peoples consciences, mutual respect, dialogue and cooperation the world would find solutions to the most serious problems.

His Holiness:

We have found many deep coincidences, but, of course, we do not agree about all matters.

For your decision to visit us, for your affectionate feelings towards Cubans, that we will always remember, I express, on behalf of Cuba and myself, our deep gratitude and appreciation.

Thank you very much.

According to The Vatican´s spokesman, Federico Lombardi, the 30-minute meeting held at the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana was carried out very cordially.

In a statement to reporters at the National Hotel´s press room,

Lombardi said that they talked about the current world situation, as well as topics related to science, culture, and technology.

Benedict XVI and Fidel Castro also talk about the Church liturgy and its changes in the last decades, added the spokesman.

According to Lombardi, the Pope also expressed his joy for being in Cuba and expressed gratitude for the welcome, while Fidel Castro showed interest for the work of a Supreme Pontiff.

The Cuban leader met with John Paul II fourteen years ago, in which was then the first visit of a Holy Father to Cuba.

Tuesday, Fidel Castro had predicted the possibility of a meeting with Benedict XVI, who concludes today a three-day apostolic trip in the framework of the Jubilee Year for the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the image of the Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre, the patron saint of Cuba.

¿I will be a great pleasure to greet and meet with Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday, as I did with John Paul II, said Fidel in his most recent reflections.

The head of State of the Vatican City will return to Rome this afternoon, after accomplishing a busy agenda in the Caribbean country.

A massive attendance by believers and non-believers is expected, and the Revolution Square was prepared in honour to the Cuban National Hero Jose Marti.

A great altar is going over the conditions created for the activity. The ceremony will be accompanied by the image of the Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre, patron saint of Cuba, center of the visit because of the 400th anniversary of the finding of the image of the Virgin.

Benedict XVI officiated a mass to more than 200,000 people shortly after his arrival to Santiago de Cuba Monday, so this allows to predict that there will be a wide popular presence at the Jose Marti Revolution Square.

The Holy Father will return to Rome Wednesday afternoon.

He was received by Cuban President Raul Castro at the Revolution Palace and talked to religious authorities.

This is the second time Cuba receives a Holiness, since it was done with John Paul II in 1998.

According to the agenda of the visit, the dialogue with the administrator of the Caribbean will be held in the afternoon at the Revolution Palace in Havana, where it is expected that both heads of state to conduct a courtesy to the people on the stairs of the building.

His Holiness, who arrived in the country invited by the Government and the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba, will also meet with religious authorities in the Nunciature.

In the morning, the Holy Father will visit the shrine of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, which arrived yesterday afternoon from Mexico to start a three-day apostolic visit.

At noon, Benedict XVI will arrive at Jose Marti airport in Havana, where he will begin the second part of his pastoral visit to the Caribbean nation, which runs until tomorrow.

The stay of Benedict XVI, held under the theme of pilgrimage Charity, is also part of the Jubilee Year celebrations for the anniversary of 400 years of searching for the image of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, considered by the Catholic patron saint of Cuba.

On Monday, during the official reception ceremony at the Antonio Maceo Airport in Santiago, Benedict XVI thanked the acceptance and the feeling of respect received for his arrival.

On the other hand, expressed his conviction that Cuba looks to the future and strives to renew and expand their horizons on the basis of a “vast heritage of spiritual and moral values, which confirms their genuine identity.”

After the Mass offered in the Plaza de la Revolución Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba, the Holy Father granted the Golden Rose to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, a distinction created by Pope Leo IX in 1049 to distinguish individuals, institutions and symbols of the Catholic religion.

Cuba welcomes you with affection and respect, and is honoured by your presence. Here you will find a fraternal and educated people bent on attaining full justice, and sparing no sacrifices to accomplish it.
From Marti we learned to honour the full dignity of man and inherited the brotherly formula we continue to apply until this day: “…with all and for the good of all.”

Cintio Vitier, an outstanding intellectual and a Christian, wrote that “the true face of the homeland [...] is that of justice and freedom,” and that “our nation has no choice other than being independent or not being at all.”
The mightiest power known to History has unsuccessfully tried to deprive us of the right to freedom, peace and justice. With patriotism and ethical principles, the Cuban people have sustained a tenacious resistance, knowing that it is our legitimate right to pursue our own path, to defend our culture and to enhance it with the contribution of the most advanced ideas.
Cuba is undeservedly slandered; but we are confident that the truth, which we never relinquish, will make its way.
Fourteen years after the visit of Pope John Paul II, the economic, politic and media blockade against Cuba is still in force, and has tightened in the financial sector. As stated in a US Memorandum of April 6th, 1960, declassified several decades later, the purpose of the blockade is to cause hunger and desperation and to overthrow the government.
However, our nation has persevered on its course, changing everything that needs to be changed, in an effort to meet the highest aspirations of the Cuban people, which have freely engaged in transcendental decisions concerning our society, including those of economic and social nature that almost everywhere else in the world are under control of tight political and financial elites.
Several generations of our compatriots have joined in the struggle for lofty ideals and noble objectives. We have faced hardships but we have never failed to fulfil our duty of sharing what we have with those less fortunate.
Just as an example of how much could be done if solidarity prevailed, allow me to say that in the past ten years Cuba has helped train tens of thousands of medical doctors from other countries. At the same time, it has assisted 2.2 million low-income people to recover or improve their vision, and has contributed to teach 5.8 million people how to read and write. I can assure you that, to the extent of our modest capabilities, we shall continue providing our international cooperation.
His Holiness:
We are commemorating the Fourth Centennial of the appearance and presence of the image of Our Lady of Charity from El Cobre, who carries the national coat of arms embroidered on her mantle.
The recent pilgrimage of the Virgin throughout the country brought our people together, both believers and non-believers, in a particularly significant event.
You are welcomed to Santiago de Cuba, which has been a protagonist of glorious exploits in the history of struggles waged by Cubans for their final independence, and also to the small town of El Cobre, a place where the Spanish Crown was prompted to grant revolted slaves in the mines their freedom, eighty years before the abolition of that infamous institution in Cuba.
We are pleased with the close relations existing between the Holy See and Cuba, which have developed continuously for seventy six years, based on mutual respect and concurrence on issues of crucial importance for mankind.
Good relations prevail between our government and the Catholic Roman Church in Cuba.
The Cuban Constitution provides and ensures full religious freedom to every citizen and, on the same basis, the government sustains good relations with every religion and religious institution in our country.
His Holiness:
It’s been almost twenty years since Fidel took many by surprise with the statement that “an important biological species is in risk of extinction due to the accelerated and progressive elimination of its natural habitat: Man.”
The threats to peace keep mounting and the existence of huge nuclear arsenals poses another grave danger to human beings.
. Water and food, second only to hydrocarbons, will be the cause of future predatory wars. The resources invested in the production of deadly weapons would suffice to eliminate poverty. The mind-boggling development of science and technology is not being used to tackle the major problems affecting human beings; quite often they are used to create conditioned reflexes or to manipulate public opinion. Finances have become an oppressive power.
It is not solidarity that is expanding but rather a systemic crisis brought about by irrational consumerism in the wealthy societies. A negligible portion of the population accumulates enormous wealth while the number of those who are destitute and hungry, helpless and ill without access to medical care keeps growing.
In the industrial world, the protesters cannot no longer stand injustice, while distrust of social and ideological models that obliterate spiritual values and generate selfishness and exclusion, particularly among the youth, is increasing.
It is true that the global crisis also has a moral dimension, and that there is a gap between the governments and the people they pretend to serve. Actually, political corruption and the absence of real democracy are both current evils.
We find that our views coincide with regards to these and other issues.
In the face of so many challenges, Our America comes together in sovereignty and strives for a more fraternal integration that can lead to the realization of our forefathers’ bicentennial dreams.
His Holiness will be addressing people with deeply held convictions who will listen to him attentively and with great respect.
On behalf of our nation I offer you the warmest welcome.
Thank you very much.

Streets, avenues, public and business facilities, Catholic churches, cars, and houses are full of warm examples for the “Pilgrim of La Caridad del Cobre,” a slogan that will accompany second trip a Supreme Pontiff to Cuba, after the one paid by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

A particular atmosphere prevails in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, some 900 kilometers (559 miles) east of Havana, and in the capital.

The

visit coincides with the Jubilee Year for the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the image of the Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre, Cuba’s patron saint.

Government and religious authorities have predicted a warm and mass welcome for the the head of State of the Vatican, as part of his 23rd apostolic visit, the second one to Latin America. Before this, the Pope visited Brazil in 2007.

Havana Church occupied last week by counterrevolutionary elementsIn a Wednesday article titled “Another chapter of disrespect and falsehoods,” Granma says that due to the its failure in preventing the visit of His Holiness to Cuba, the Miami-based Cuban extreme-right has planned an agenda of provocative actions aimed at pressuring the Vatican to speak against the Cuban revolutionary project.

Rightist Miami elements have sent to counterrevolutionary groups in Cuba money and emails with precise instructions to create public disorders in catholic masses and ceremonies during the Pope’s visit, with the aim of drawing international media attention, reveals the article.

After ensuring that the Cuban people and their religious community will be well occupied in welcoming the Holy Father, with deserved affection and respect, the newspaper says it is confident that the head of the Catholic Church will keep the memory of this visit in a special place of his heart.

state of Vatican City arrives in Guanajuato.

Radio stations, the press, websites and television channels have increased news related to the arrival of His Holiness, given the existing countdown.

The Catholic Church confirmed that the Pope´s visit will be accompanied by an atmosphere of peace and joy, Archbishop of Leon Jose Guadalupe Martin told the press.

The archbishop reaffirmed that the Presidential General Staff (EMP) is in charge of the logistics and security of the visit.

“Do not be afraid, be calmed and welcome the Pope and be sure that it will be a feast of faith and grace”, the archbishop insisted.

Archbishop Martin noted that 185 cardinals, archbishops and bishops will arrive in Guanajuato on Thursday to welcome His Holiness, who will arrive at the international airport in Silao on Friday at 16:30 hours (local time).

The Vatican on Friday condemned the U.S. blockade against Cuba, while making prior statements to the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Caribbean island next week.

to be the cornerstone of the U.S. policy towards the Caribbean island, located just 145 kilometers from the state of Florida, although the measure has not fulfilled its main objective of undermining the Cuban Revolution.

(With information from Reuters)

Translated by Osmany González Tocabens