In the Cuban dioceses of Santa Clara and Guantánamo-Baracoa, preparations are in full swing to welcome card. Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State of the Holy See, who will visit Cuba from 20th to 26th February to celebrate the tenth anniversary of John Paul II’s visit to Cuba (18-25 January 1998). In Santa Clara, the city where the Pope celebrated the first Mass on Cuban soil, card. Bertone will arrive the evening of 22nd February, then in the bishop’s palace he will meet the priests, the devotees and a choir of children. This will be the cardinal’s third visit to Santa Clara, the first two having been in 2001 and 2005, as a secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as the archbishop of Genoa, respectively. In 2005, he also "left" in the diocese two Italian missionary priests. In the diocese of Guantánamo-Baracoa established by John Paul II at Mass on 24th January 1998 – card. Bertone will celebrate an outdoor Mass on Sunday 24th February at 9 am. People are expected to come in large numbers, and special transport services have been arranged in the most distant areas of the diocese. For people living on the mountains, says the Cuban Bishops Conference, negotiations are under way with the authorities to broadcast Mass on the provincial radio. (continued)
