Cuban President Fidel Castro (L) greets Pope John Paul II in this file photo from January 25, 1998, after the Pope's historic mass in Havana's Revolution Square. The 84-year-old Pope appeared close to death on April 1, 2005, after heart failure and breathing problems. Pope John Paul II helped bring down the Berlin Wall, but hardly dented Cuban Communism despite a landmark visit to the island that many thought would open up the Western Hemisphere's last Marxist state. REUTERS/Paul Hanna