Amid the economic reforms and liberalized travel rules instituted by President Barack Obama, Cuba has increasingly sought to dialogue with segments of its large exile community, with several high-profile encounters recently.

Many exiles say they want nothing to do with government leaders in their homeland until Raul and Fidel Castro are out of power, but others are looking to play a role in the changes the island is undergoing.

A popular topic during Saturday’s videoconference between the Foreign Ministry in Havana and the Cuban Interests Section in Washington was a much-anticipated reform of migratory rules that, among other things, require Cubans to apply for an exit visa.

Cuban-Americans also questioned the officials about regulations that strip those who leave permanently of the right to own property back home, and bar them from investing or accessing Cuba’s recently legalized real estate market, which is currently only available to island residents.

Emigrants are treated as second-class citizens, complained a man who identified himself as Julio Ruiz of Miami.

Rodriguez said reforms being studied will take into account the realities of 50 years of emigration and make an “important contribution” to bringing Cubans everywhere closer together. But he also cautioned people not to expect too much.

“The migratory relaxation will take into account the revolutionary state’s right to defend itself from the interventionist plans of the U.S. government and its allies, and at the same time, reasonable countermeasures will be imposed to preserve the human capital created by the revolution,” Rodriguez said.

University of Denver scholar Arturo Lopez-Levy said it’s clear the Cuban government is looking to build bridges to exiles, but so far it has been talking more than listening.

“The official statements indicate that the government is interested in improving relations between the island and its diaspora,” Lopez-Levy said. “Nevertheless such improvement has not been conceived as part of a dialogue, which implies two-way communication and decision-making.

Still, there have been a number of prominent exchanges in recent weeks.

During Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit to Cuba, hundreds of Cuban-Americans came here as pilgrims including Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who called for a “soft landing” from Marxism during an emotional sermon at the Havana Cathedral. Earlier this month, the Catholic Church organized a conference of scholars from the Cuban diaspora in Havana.

And Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas, a one-time hardline anti-Castro militant whose stance toward the island government has softened somewhat, held a conference that was attended by people ranging from dissidents to intellectuals to Communist Party members and others to the left of the communist-run government.

Rodriguez said 400,000 Cuban-Americans came to the island last year to see families or on religious or academic exchanges.

Such visits have increased sharply since Obama lifted restrictions on how often Cuban-Americans can travel back home.

Santiago’s main plaza, however, came alive when Benedict arrived for his evening Mass, his main public event here before heading Tuesday to Havana. While the plaza, which has a capacity of about 200,000, was not fully packed there was a festive atmosphere, with Cubans dancing to the rhythms of a samba band awaiting Benedict’s arrival and waving small Cuban and Vatican flags.

“It is a message of love, this visit,” said Jorgelina Guevara, a 59-year-old homemaker as she waited for the Mass to begin. “The Cuban people need it.”

For major public events and holidays in Cuba, local Communist Party leaders strongly encourage attendance, granting workers time off and keeping careful track of who shows up and who doesn’t.

The trip comes 14 years after John Paul’s historic tour, when the Polish pope who helped bring down communism in his homeland admonished Fidel Castro to free prisoners of conscience, end abortion and let the Roman Catholic Church take its place in society.

Benedict’s message as he arrived was more subtle, taking into account the liberalizing reforms that Raul Castro has enacted since taking over from his older brother in 2006 and the greater role the Catholic Church has played in Cuban affairs, most recently in negotiating the release of dozens of political prisoners.

The pontiff, who at the start of his trip said Marxism “no longer responds to reality,” gave a much gentler message upon stepping on Cuban soil, saying he wanted to inspire and encourage Cubans on the island and beyond.

“I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans, wherever they may be,” he said. “Those of the young and the elderly, of adolescents and children, of the sick and workers, of prisoners and their families, and of the poor and those in need.”

The 84-year-old pontiff’s voice was tired, and by the end of the day he seemed exhausted after a vigorous four days of travel. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, acknowledged Benedict’s fatigue but said his health was fine.

In his own remarks, the Cuban leader assured Benedict his country favors complete religious liberty and has good relations with all religious institutions. He also criticized the 50-year U.S. economic embargo and defended the socialist ideal of providing for those less fortunate.

“We have confronted scarcity but have never failed in our duty to share with those who have less,” Castro said, adding that his country remains determined to chart its own path and resist efforts by “the most forceful power that history has ever known” — a reference to the United States — to thwart the island’s socialist model.

The two men greeted each other with clasped hands and wide smiles after the pope arrived in steamy, 88-degree Fahrenheit (31-degree Celsius) temperatures.

Benedict’s three-day stay in Cuba inevitably sparked comparisons to his predecessor’s, when Fidel Castro traded his army fatigues for a suit and tie to greet the pope and where John Paul uttered the now-famous words: “May Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself up to the world, and may the world open itself up to Cuba.”

Benedict referred repeatedly to John Paul in his speech Monday, saying his visit was a “gentle breath of fresh air” that gave strength to the church on the island.

He also denounced the ills of capitalism — a theme he has touched on frequently amid the global financial crisis but which took on particular significance in one of the world’s last remaining Marxist systems. Benedict bemoaned a “profound spiritual and moral crisis which has left humanity devoid of values and defenseless before the ambition and selfishness of certain powers which take little account of the true good of individuals and families.”

Late Monday, Benedict celebrated an outdoor Mass in the colonial city’s main square on a blue-and-white platform crowned by graceful arches in the shape of a bishops’ miter. Raul Castro was in the front row, and greeted the pontiff at the end of the service.

Just before the Mass began, a man near an area reserved for international press began shouting anti-government slogans such as “Down with the Revolution! Down with the dictatorship!”

The shouting was heard by an Associated Press photographer and others. The man tried to enter the press area shouting “I only screamed that we are not free” and “nobody paid me anything,” but he was restrained by security agents and led away. It was not clear who he was or what happened to him. The government had no immediate comment.

Benedict will spend the night in a house beside the shrine of Cuba’s patron saint, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, where he will briefly pray Tuesday morning.

The statue, which is revered by Cubans Catholic and not, was brought to the Mass on the top of a truck to the joy of the faithful present.

“She is a beauty, the most extraordinary thing,” Mercy Serra said as the statue made its way through the crowd. “She is the mother of all Cubans.”

Cuban state television broadcast the Mass live, even turning over some of the commentary to a Catholic monsignor.

The crowd included Cubans wearing identical white “Bienvenido” T-shirts, as well as a few hundred Cuban exiles from the United States who flew into Santiago on special charter flights.

“It really does exists, the place where I was born in,” said Rita Freixas of Miami Beach, with tears welling up in her eyes. Freixas, who left when she was just one year old, said she nearly came back in 1998 for John Paul’s visit. “But my father had just died and he had been in the Bay of Pigs, and I just felt that somehow I would have betrayed him if I had come then.”

She arrived with her two grown sons and her best friend; She said with a laugh that while she was waiting for the pope, her two sons had gone off in search of cigars.

Benedict will only be in Cuba for a little over 48 hours, and his limited schedule is sure to disappoint many who want a piece of his attention, from the dissident community, to returning Cuban American exiles and even representatives of imprisoned U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross.

The Vatican has said the pope has no plans to meet with any of them, citing his advanced age and need for rest. More likely but still unconfirmed is a face-to-face with Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 but remains the father of the revolution and is still referred to as “El Comandante.”

A new wild card entered into play with the arrival Saturday of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is getting radiation therapy for his cancer. Lombardi said no request for an audience had been received but he suggested Chavez could attend Mass on Wednesday.

The one confirmed meeting is the pope’s Tuesday encounter with Raul Castro in Havana.

Since taking over from Fidel in 2006, Raul Castro has ushered in a series of economic reforms, legalizing a real estate market, opening the door to limited private enterprise and turning over vast tracts of fallow government land to independent, small time farmers. Pressed by Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega, he has also cleared Cuba’s jails of the last of 75 political prisoners jailed in a 2003 crackdown.

Cuba denies it holds any political prisoners now. Officials refer to dissidents as mercenaries in the sway of its U.S. enemies. Human rights groups say some Cubans remain jailed for their political activities.

The island’s Communist government never outlawed religion, but it expelled priests and closed religious schools after Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba in 1959. Tensions eased in the early 1990s when the government removed references to atheism in the constitution and let believers of all faiths join the Communist Party.

John Paul’s 1998 visit further warmed relations, and today the church is the most influential independent institution in Cuba, and magazines it operates have published frank articles calling for change.

But despite years of lobbying, the church has virtually no access to state-run radio or television, is not allowed to administer schools and has not been granted permission to build new places of worship. Only about 10 percent of Cubans are practicing Catholics.

Lack of enthusiasm for the Church predates the 1959 Cuban Revolution. From the early years under Spanish colonial rule, Catholicism was the religion of the ruling elite while believers of Afro-Cuban faiths were forced to hide their ceremonies and mask their deities behind Catholic saints.

Experts say as many as 80 percent of islanders observe some kind of Afro-Cuban religion, including Santeria, and evangelism is on the rise with some 600,000 Cubans believed to be part of Protestant and or evangelical denominations, less than Catholics but rising.

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Associated Press writers Peter Orsi and Paul Haven in Havana, and Laura Wides-Munoz in Santiago, contributed to this report.

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Fewer than 10 percent of Cubans are practicing Catholics.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

SILAO, Mexico (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI headed to Cuba on Monday, hoping to inspire the same outpouring of faith on the communist-run island as he did in Mexico’s conservative Catholic heartland.

Crowds waving flags and Vatican-yellow balloons cheered Benedict at the airport and mariachi bands played as he left Spanish-speaking Latin America’s most Roman Catholic country and headed for its least.

“My brief but intense visit to Mexico is now coming to an end. Yet this is not the end of my affection and my closeness to a country so very dear to me,” he said on the tarmac.

“I wish to reiterate clearly and with vigor a plea to the Mexican people to remain faithful to yourselves, not to let yourselves be intimidated by the powers of evil,” he said, apparently alluding to drug violence and corruption. He urged Mexicans “to be valiant and to work to ensure that the sap of your Christian roots may nourish your present and your future.”

Benedict’s first stop in Cuba is Santiago, the island’s second largest city and home to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, a tiny wooden statue that is revered by Cubans, Catholic and not.

The pope will celebrate an open-air Mass Monday evening in Santiago’s main plaza then pray at the sanctuary housing the statue Tuesday before heading to Havana, where he will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro — and presumably his brother Fidel.

Benedict’s three-day stay in Cuba will of course spark comparisons to Pope John Paul II’s historic 1998 tour, when Fidel Castro shed his army fatigues for a suit and tie to greet the pope at Havana’s airport and where John Paul uttered the now-famous words: “May Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself up to the world, and may the world open itself up to Cuba.”

Those comparisons were also evident in Mexico, which had claimed John Paul as its own during his five visits over a nearly 27-year pontificate. But with his first visit to Mexico, Benedict appeared to lay to rest the impression that he is a distant, cold pontiff who can never compare to the charisma and personal connection forged by his predecessor.

“Some young people rejected the pope, saying he has an angry face. But now they see him like a grandfather,” said Cristian Roberto Cerda Reynoso, 17, a seminarian from Leon who attended Benedict’s Sunday Mass. “I see the youth filled with excitement and enthusiasm.”

Each day, the pope addressed the issue of drug cartel violence, which has killed more than 47,000 people since President Felipe Calderon launched a militarized offensive against the cartels at the end of 2006.

Benedict also charmed the crowd at Mass by donning a sombrero for his popemobile tour through the estimated 350,000 people. He put on another one later Sunday night when he was serenaded by a mariachi band as he returned to the school where he has been staying.

“We saw a lot of happiness in his face. We are used to seeing him with a harder appearance, but this time he looked happier, smiling,” said Esther Villegas, a 36-year-old cosmetics vendor. “A lot of people didn’t care for him enough before, but now he has won us over.”

While Cubans eagerly awaited Benedict’s arrival, the political overtones on the second leg of his trip were far greater than what he encountered in Mexico.

Cuba’s single-party, Communist government never outlawed religion, but it expelled priests and closed religious schools upon Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba in 1959. Tensions eased in the early 1990s when the government removed references to atheism in the constitution and let believers of all faiths join the Communist Party.

John Paul’s 1998 visit further warmed relations.

But problems remain. Despite years of lobbying, the church has virtually no access to state-run radio or television, is not allowed to administer schools, and has not been granted permission to build new places of worship. The island of 11.2 million people has just 361 priests. Before 1959 there were 700 priests for a population of 6 million.

The Catholic Church, however, is now the most influential independent institution in the country, thanks in no small part to Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana. He has negotiated with Raul Castro for the release of political prisoners, given the government advice on economic policy and allowed church magazines to publish increasingly frank articles about the need for change.

In the weeks leading up to Benedict’s arrival, the government cracked down on dissidents with detentions. But on Sunday, the dissident group known as the Ladies in White held its customary weekly protest outside a Havana church without incident.

The Vatican has said the pope has no plans to meet with the dissidents. More certain but still unconfirmed is a meeting with Fidel Castro. And a new wildcard entered into play with the arrival Saturday of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is getting radiation therapy for his cancer.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, was asked Sunday about reports the pope might meet with Chavez while in Cuba. Lombardi said that as of Sunday morning, there were no such plans.

“That can change, anything can change,” he told reporters. But he said the pope’s delegation hadn’t heard that Chavez was in Cuba until Sunday morning and that they reported having received no request for any audience.

In Mexico on Sunday, Benedict urged Mexicans to wield their faith against drug violence, poverty and other ills — a constant theme during his three days that increasingly took on political overtones a week before campaigning opens for Mexico’s presidential election on July 1.

Guanajuato state remains Mexico’s most conservatively Catholic, one of the few states with a government dominated by the conservative, Catholic-oriented National Action Party, which is trying to retain the presidency.

The church has repeatedly disavowed any political overtones to the pope’s trip, saying the pontiff has no intention of boosting the party in power.

John Paul, however, made a point to avoid visiting countries in the throes of election campaigns, to not be seen as giving any political message. And he always made it a point to meet with opposition leaders.

Benedict eschewed the opposition meeting on this trip. President Felipe Calderon appeared with the pope on every day of the trip.

The pope also greeted some prominent victims of drug-cartel violence in a brief session organized by the government. Calderon’s office said the pope had “met” with the victims, sending out a press release with their names. The Vatican spokesman said there was no “meeting” but merely a brief handshake and exchange of words as the pope left the government palace in Guanajuato city.

The National Action Party has suffered in recent polls, trailing the candidate of Mexico’s previous ruling party by double digits, and many ascribe its poor showing to public anger over the drug violence.

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Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield reported this story in Leon and Michael Weissenstein reported in Silao. AP writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Guanajuato and E. Eduardo Castillo in Leon contributed to this report.

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Soler said most of the demonstrators were freed by late Sunday, but others were held overnight. She said she had not heard from her husband, Angel Moya, another anti-government activist who was arrested Sunday.

The detentions capped a tense week in which little-known government opponents occupied another Havana church for two days in an attempt to shine the spotlight on human rights ahead of the pope’s March 26-28 trip.

The Ladies in White walk through a western Havana neighborhood each Sunday after Mass to press the government to free prisoners jailed for politically motivated crimes. They also demand political change on the island ruled for 53 years by Fidel and Raul Castro.

The Cuban government considers all dissidents to be common criminals and troublemakers financed by Washington to harm the communist-run government. Authorities have been quiet about the weekend arrests, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last spring, Cuba released the last of 75 government opponents imprisoned in a 2003 crackdown on dissent. Amnesty International no longer recognizes any inmates in Cuba as “prisoners of conscience,” though some are behind bars for politically inspired crimes that were violent in nature.

Soler said authorities warned the Ladies to stay away from Benedict’s public events in Havana and the eastern city of Santiago.

“Even if we are unable to meet with the Holy Father … we will go to his Mass in Santiago de Cuba as well as the one here in Havana, whatever the cost,” Soler said. Cuban dissidents have asked for an audience with the pontiff, but the Vatican has said Benedict has no plans to alter his schedule, which is limited due to his advanced age.

The Roman Catholic Church has usually mediated for Cuban dissidents, but tensions have risen since last week’s occupation of the church in central Havana. The protesters demanded the pope raise their concerns with Cuban officials.

Police raided the church Thursday at the request of Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega. The protesters were not jailed, but received a stern warning.

More than 100 government opponents were briefly detained across the country over the weekend, according to Elizardo Sanchez, who monitors the human rights situation in Cuba and acts as a de facto spokesman for the opposition.

“The government is creating a climate not at all favorable for the visit by Benedict,” Sanchez said. “I think it is having an impact. Vatican diplomacy will take note.”

A church spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Washington, the State Department called the detentions a “reprehensible” violation of democratic principles and urged Benedict to address human rights in conversations with Cuban authorities.

“One would hope and expect that this would be the kind of thing that would be raised in the context of such a visit,” spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

On Monday morning, Soler appeared at the home of the late Ladies in White co-founder Laura Pollan, which the group uses as a base of operations. She said the protesters were told the wide Havana thoroughfare where they hold their weekly post-Mass demonstrations would be off-limits. It was not clear, however, whether such a restriction would stretch past the pope’s visit.

“They warned us that the space they had given us on Quinta Avenida was going to end, that we were not going to be able to go to (the church) any more,” Soler said. “That is something we are not going to respect, because it is our right … nobody can take that away.”

Also Monday, an orchestra and choir rehearsed performances planned to accompany Benedict’s Mass at Havana’s sprawling Plaza of the Revolution.

Works by Handel, Mozart and Cuban composer Alfredo Levy are among those on the bill, choir director Jaquelin Ramirez said.

Construction is nearly complete on a giant stage brightly painted in the yellow and white of the Vatican.

“It is an honor to be here. We belong to a professional choir and opportunities like this come along only once in a lifetime,” singer Eduardo Vega said.

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As host, Colombia gets the final decision.

“As we have said from the beginning, (the summit) is a matter that requires consensus, a consensus that unfortunately we have not been able to find,” Santos said at Havana’s international airport Wednesday night prior to departing.

“We made it clear to President Castro that although we truly appreciate his desire to be part of this gathering, under such circumstances without having reached consensus it is very difficult to extend an invitation to him.”

Santos thanked Castro for his expressing a desire not to create problems for the summit or for Colombia, and also said he respects other nations’ wish for Cuba to take part in regional gatherings.

“Colombia hopes that the situation of Cuba, its participation, be discussed in a constructive manner and respectfully at the Cartagena summit. … It is a matter that has been many years without a solution.

Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin told reporters that during Santos’ visit with Chavez, the Venezuelan leader indicated that, health permitting, he will go to the summit and Nicaragua has also confirmed its attendance. Both nations are members of ALBA.

“We hope that everyone comes,” Holguin said.

Washington, a staunch supporter of Santos, opposes Cuban inclusion in the Summit of the Americas. Santos has sought to maintain friendly ties to Cuba, and his efforts to remain on good terms with Chavez have dramatically set him apart from his predecessor.

The Summit of the Americas is historically linked to the Organization of American States, and Cuba has not participated in the OAS since 1962. But Cuba has expressed a desire to attend the Cartagena summit.

U.S. officials say Cuba, ruled since 1959 by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, does not meet OAS standards of democracy and thus has no business taking part.

“They don’t fit the definition of democratic countries and the development of democracy in the hemisphere,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “So at this point we see absolutely no basis and no intention to invite them to the summit.”

Geoff Thale, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S.-based think tank, said the fact that Santos was going out of his way to smooth over the flap, together with ALBA’s support for Cuba, shows that the region is increasingly willing to deviate from U.S. international policy.

“The widespread support in Latin America for Cuba’s participation in the Summit, and the willingness of many governments to push the issue, underscores the decline of U.S. influence in the region,” Thale said by e-mail.

In Havana, Santos and Chavez gave a green light to bilateral accords that they were to have discussed on March 1 before Chavez’s illness interrupted plans to get together.

“We found (Chavez) in good health considering the circumstances he has had to go through. We found him happy, in good spirits, walking around the side of the hospital,” Santos said.

“He told me he would stay a few days more (in Cuba) and planned to return to Venezuela early next week.”

ALBA, Chavez’s brainchild, is made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela.

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Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana and Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

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Andrea Rodriguez is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP