At the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, America’s Catholic President, John Kennedy, quietly approached Pope John XXIII for help in defusing the horrendous threat of nuclear war. One result was a broadcast by the Pope, warning on behalf of mankind of the likely human cost of such a conflict, and pleading for peace. Nikita Krushchev, Kennedy’s adversary in the Kremlin, later expressed his gratitude for the role that the Holy See had played in finding better solutions to the crisis than the armed conflict that then seemed imminent. Pope Francis’s visit to Cuba this weekend comes in the wake of the crucial papal diplomacy which helped deliver the recent reconciliation between Cuba and the United States. Yet for the Holy See that was simply finishing unfinished bus