“Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people“, said Pope Francis during mass in front of thousands of Cubans.

His visit is aimed at further improving ties between the government and the Roman Catholic Church and encouraging a more open society in Cuba.

“The pope called it a process, and we are making progress every day”.

Pope Francis visits with Cuba’s President Raul Castro, in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, September 20, 2015.

Later on Sunday, the pope held a rally with young people and met with priests and nuns, putting aside his prepared comments and clearly enjoying the chance to improvise and tell jokes in his native language.

Like his predecessors, he will not meet with dissidents, the Associated Press reported, and despite a Vatican pledge that Francis would not address the thawing relations between the USA and Cuba, the pope took on the subject immediately after landing in Cuba on Saturday.

It lasted about 30 minutes, with the pope and the communist leader exchanging books about religion.

The Castro meetings went off without a hitch.

Alex Ferdinand, who owns a restaurant in Havana’s historic centre, said: “For me, it makes no difference whether he comes here or not”.

Castro’s son, Alex, photographed the meeting.

Francis also urged Cubans to look out for one another and not just judge others based on what they are or are not doing.

Perhaps the pope is distracted by other concerns – such as the promise of uniting with President Obama on the U.S. leg of his trip on issues like climate change and inequality. “This service always leaves ‘your people” outside, and gives rise to a process of exclusion”. His speeches come off more pastoral than partisan, evoking few overt political references. In a 1998 book that he edited, he wrote that Cuba’s “authoritarian” and “corrupt” regime should be scrapped in favor of a representative democracy. Francis is the first pope to visit Holguin, Cuba’s third-largest city.

With the pope arriving in the USA on Tuesday, a CBS News/New York Times poll finds 79 percent of American Catholics approve of his direction for the church.

Pope Francis, he said, has talked about building bridges and reconciliation with Cuba.

Francis then met for an hour with Fidel’s brother Raul, a declared atheist who, perhaps jokingly, has said he likes the pope so much he is thinking of returning to his Catholic roots.

The communist country has long defined itself by its rejection of the competition and self-interest that many see as central to life in the USA and other developed countries. Francis arrived in the sanctuary shortly after landing in the nearby eastern city of Santiago, his final stop in Cuba before heading to the USA on Tuesday.