Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro says he has asked for a "modest and simple" meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in Havana on Wednesday.
"I will gladly meet tomorrow morning His Excellency, the Pope, as I did when John Paul II visited," Castro wrote Tuesday in the official Cubadebate website.
Castro, who stepped down from power in 2006 due to illness, called the pope "a man whose contact with children and humble members of society has, invariably, raised feelings of affection."