Pope John Paul II, in the bluntest political messages yet of his historic Cuban visit, called Saturday for the release of "prisoners of conscience" on this communist island and respect for three freedoms - of expression, initiative and association.
The pope got some help from a bold Cuban bishop in the eastern city of Santiago, where the pontiff spoke at a morning open-air Mass.Addressing tens of thousands of faithful, Santiago's Archbishop Pedro Meurice Estiu said too many Cubans "have confused patriotism with a party," that is, the communists.
Party members were there to hear the churchmen's reproachful words. In the front "pew" of chairs sat a group of officials led by President Fidel Castro's powerful brother Raul, Cuba's defense minister.
But the Castro government had no immediate official response to their statements.
The pontiff's appeal on behalf of political prisoners came later Saturday, during a dramatic evening pilgrimage to a hallowed Cuban shrine for the sick - the leprosarium and religious center of St. Lazarus, outside Havana, where he spoke to health workers, lepers and AIDS patients.
"Suffering is not only physical," said the 77-year-old pontiff, himself impaired by a variety of ailments and injuries.
"There is also suffering of the soul, such as we see in those who are isolated, persecuted, imprisoned for various offenses or for reasons of conscience, for ideas which though dissident are nonetheless peaceful."
He said he encouraged efforts to return these "prisoners of conscience" to society.
It would be "a gesture which honors the authority promoting it," John Paul said.
Human-rights groups say Cuba holds at least 500 political prisoners. On Thursday, the second day of the pope's five-day visit, Vatican officials asked for clemency on behalf of several hundred Cuban prisoners, both political detainees and common criminals.
Cuban officials said they would consider that request.
The Saturday morning Mass was broadcast live on national television, bringing into homes across Cuba unusually candid words about the 39-year-old revolution.
In one Havana hotel, as the pope spoke in Santiago, maids leaned on their brooms and government officials fell silent to listen to the message from the man millions here consider the global spokesman for their Christian tradition.
Before the visit, Castro had declared the pope would be free to say whatever he wanted in Cuba. The longtime Cuban leader clearly was willing to risk inspiring some new open dissent in this country, in exchange for burnishing the image of an increasingly tolerant Cuba.
The pontiff gets one more chance to put his mark - with his closely attended words - on Cuba's religious and possibly political future, when he officiates today at a climactic final Mass in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution, expected to be attended by hundreds of thousands.