“For Pope Francis, on occasion of his visit to Cuba, with the admiration and respect of the Cuban people“, Fidel wrote.

“Despite the very hot muggy weather, Holguin’s Revolution Square was packed with thousands of people waving flags”, NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports on the city’s welcome for the pope.

While Cuba’s government basks in the glow of the pope’s four-day visit, he may use the stage to criticise the Communist leaders on democracy and human rights.

The Vatican stressed that no official meeting had been planned with the dissidents.

Castro, who wore a blue-and-white track suit, gave him a copy of Fidel and Religion, a 1985 book of interviews with a Brazilian priest which lifted a taboo on speaking about religion in Cuba, then officially atheist.

In his homily, Francis urged Cubans to care for one another out of a sense of service, not ideology, and to refrain from judging one another by “looking to one side or the other to see what our neighbour is doing or not doing”.

The huge plaza is where Cubans celebrate May Day beneath massive portraits of revolutionary leaders Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos built into the facades of government buildings.

“The world needs reconciliation”, Francis said in his first remarks in the Caribbean nation, calling the U.S.-Cuba diplomatic efforts as an example of “for all the world“.

Since landing, Francis has made comments that many have considered carefully critical, and he has criticized Cuba in the past.

On Sunday, Francis had a “friendly and informal” meeting with Fidel Castro at the former Cuban president’s residence, the Vatican said.

At least three Cuban dissidents were arrested outside of the Plaza of the Revolution as Francis delivered mass there, the BBC reported. Lombardi said the central themes for the pope’s visit would be the fractious conflicts tearing apart the Middle East and elsewhere, migration and the need to help those who flee their homes, and the importance of dialogue in building bridges.

To judge by polls, most of America’s 51 million or so Catholics, a third of whom are Hispanic, are delighted by their leader and by his left-sounding pronouncements on economics and global warming.

“For some months now, we have witnessed an event which fills us with hope: the process of normalising relations between two peoples following years of estrangement”, he said in a speech on the tarmac of Jose Marti worldwide Airport. “We are an optimistic people, but we have suffered for many years”.

Francis will fly from the capital Havana to Washington on Tuesday (September 22).