In Cuba, pope says ‘basic freedoms’ must not be limited

Pope Benedict XVI. AFP PHOTO/RONALDO SCHEMIDT

HAVANA—Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday at the end of his visit to Cuba that no one should face limitations on “basic freedoms,” calling respect of freedom “essential.”

At a departure ceremony at the airport in Havana, in the presence of President Raul Castro, the 84-year-old pontiff called for the building of a “society in which all are indispensable actors in the future of their life.”

“May no one feel excluded from taking up this exciting task because of limitations of his or her basic freedoms,” Benedict said, urging the “building a society of broad vision, renewed and reconciled.”

“Respect and promotion of freedom which is present in the heart of each person are essential… to respond adequately to the fundamental demands of his or her dignity,” the pope said.

Castro said the visit — during which the pope celebrated masses in Havana and Santiago, and met with both Castro and his brother, revolutionary icon Fidel Castro — had unfolded in an “atmosphere of mutual respect.”

Benedict has been gently prodding authorities in the Americas’ only one-party, Communist-ruled state to embrace change, calling for a more “open society” earlier in his visit.