Cuba: No political reform after papal appeal

(AP) HAVANA - A top Cuban official said Tuesday there are no prospects for political change on the communist-run island despite Pope Benedict XVI's appeals for "renewal" and "a better society."

Marino Murillo, Cuba's economic czar and a vice president on President Raul Castro's council of ministers, said that while the country is shaking up its economy, "in Cuba there will not be political reform."

Murillo's comments to a room full of journalists covering the papal visit were a quick and categorical response to comments by Benedict earlier in the day, when he made a highly symbolic prayer visit to the shrine of the nation's patron saint.

Pope has tough fight against Santeria in Cuba
Pope in Cuba as "pilgrim of charity"

"I have entrusted to the Mother of God the future of your country, advancing along the ways of renewal and hope, for the greater good of all Cubans," the pope said at the sanctuary in the little town of El Cobre.

"I have also prayed to the Virgin for the needs of those who suffer, of those who are deprived of freedom, those who are separated from their loved ones or who are undergoing times of difficulty."

On the second day of his Cuban tour, the pope knelt silently before the Virgin of Charity of Cobre for several minutes, his eyes open and hands clasped.

The crowned, wooden statue just over a foot (35 centimeters) tall stood on a covered table shrouded in blue and white cloth. The 84-year-old pontiff then rose with the help of two Cuban bishops, approached the statue, lit a candle and stood in prayer as a choir sang hymns.

The pope pointedly referred to the Virgin by her popular name, La Mambisa, in a gesture to the many non-Catholics on the island who nonetheless venerate the statue as an Afro-Cuban deity. Mambisa is the word for the Cuban fighters who won independence from Spain at the turn of the last century.

In subtle ways, the pope has acknowledged a lack of faith in what is Latin America's least Catholic countries, and tried to make his trip appealing to potential believers. The visit is timed for the 400th anniversary of the appearance of the statue of the Virgin to two fishermen and an African slave in Cuba's Bay of Hipe.

Dunia Felipillo, 45, said she was proud to see the pope praying before the Virgin of Charity, even though she herself was not Catholic.

"We all ask favors of la Cachita," she said, using the Cuban slang for the Virgin, as she watched the ceremony on TV from the lobby of a Santiago hotel.

Benedict's frequent references to the Virgin are also a way of hitting on something the church shares with Cuba's nonreligious leaders and his wider audience, in contrast to the church's positions on divorce and abortion, not to mention his past strong comments against Marxism.

While most Cubans are nominally Catholic, fewer than 10 percent practice the faith.

"I appeal to you to reinvigorate your faith ... that you may strive to build a renewed and open society, a better society, one more worthy of humanity," he said Monday at a Mass in the nearby city of Santiago.

Meanwhile, dissidents on the island were trying to determine the identity of a man who yelled "Down with the Revolution! Down with the dictatorship!" before the Mass. Security agents hustled him away. Video of the incident showed him being slapped by another man wearing the uniform of a first-aid worker, before security agents separated them.

"(We) have not been able to identify by name the young man who pronounced slogans in favor of freedom and against communism," said a statement from Elizardo Sanchez, head of a group that monitors detentions of government opponents and effectively a spokesman for the dissidents. "(We) call on the Cuban government to identify the person detained by the secret political police and inform on his whereabouts."

The government has not commented.

Benedict seemed to walk with renewed vigor Tuesday as he greeted officials and clergy after his plane arrived in Havana following a day in eastern Cuba. He had appeared exhausted the previous evening from days of traveling in Mexico.

The pope was to meet with Raul Castro in the afternoon and possibly Fidel Castro, though that had not been confirmed.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is in Havana undergoing radiation therapy for cancer, did not ask for an audience but would be welcome to attend Mass in the capital's Revolution Square on Wednesday, a Vatican spokesman said.