Pope John Paul II in Holguin

By Leandro Estupiñan.
Photos: amauris Betancourt.

In January 1998, for the first time in the nation's history, the Pope from Rome reached Cuba.

John Paul II had been invited to the Island by the government and, the pontiff, in his enthusiasm to take the church's legacy to every world’s corner, came once and for all.

Ten years are already gone since then and a photograph exhibition tours the country to recall the event. The photos belong to Arturo Mari, personal photographer from the Polish that, before taking over his duty in the Vatican, was named Karol Wojtyla.

Saint Isidoro Cathedral housed for a week the exhibit at the public’s disposal. Mari was born a few meters away from the Vatican, and was marked since his childhood by the closeness to the heads of the Catholic church.

He stayed by John Paul II for a good part of his life. He kept him company so from the early morning to late evening hours.

He followed him to Cuba during his journey in 1998. He witnessed and recorded the trip in 51 photographs out of which 31 were shown in the first Cuban city where this Pope's effigy was erected. A representative of the Order from Malta in Cuba and Luigi Bonazzi, papal nuncio, attended the inauguration.

The photographic exhibition brought back to mind the trip to Cuba of a man who practiced sports, devoted himself to art and seemed to have, like none of his ancestors in front of the church, a memorable sense of humor.He was also such a fair and human man that almost six hours before he passed away he had his old photographer Mari called, not to ask him for a portrait, but to simply say: “Thank you very much for every thing”.