HAVANA, Cuba ( AP) — Pope Benedict XVI wraps up his visit to Cuba today with an open- air Mass in the shrine of the Cuban revolution, hoping to revive the Catholic faith in this communist run country. His other appointment promises a far more tantalizing climax: a meeting with Fidel Castro.

The former Cuban leader announced late Tuesday that he would happily meet with Benedict, saying he was asking for just a “few minutes of his very busy time” in Havana.

The Vatican had already said Benedict was available, so the confirmation from Castro was all that was needed to seal the appointment and end weeks of speculation as to whether Castro would repeat the meeting he held with Pope John Paul II during his historic 1998 visit.

“ I will happily greet His Excellency Pope Benedict XVI as I did John Paul II, a man for whom contact with children and the humble raised feelings of affection,” Castro wrote. “That’s why I decided to ask for a few minutes of his very busy time when I heard from the mouth of our foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, that he would be agreeable.”

The audience and Benedict’s Mass in Revolution Plaza come 14 years after John Paul preached on the same spot before hundreds of thousands of people, Fidel among them. Then, an image of Jesus Christ was displayed opposite the plaza’s iconic image of revolutionary hero Ernesto “ Che” Guevara, a remarkable development for a country that had been officially atheist until 1992.