Pope Francis will visit Cuba in September before his trip to the United States.
Holy See spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi told reporters on Wednesday that the Pope has "received and accepted the invitation from the civil authorities and bishops of Cuba" and has decided to visit the communist-run island before travelling to the United States.
The Pope is due to arrive in Washington on 22 September and speak in Washington, New York and Philadelphia in the course of his five-day visit. However the Vatican has not yet confirmed the details.
Last December US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced that after a 53-year year rupture the two nations were working toward re-establishing official diplomatic relations, and both leaders credited Francis with helping to secure the deal.
Francis had been following and supporting the talks. He also wrote to both leaders personally, and last autumn the Vatican hosted a secret meeting between representatives of the two countries.
Relations between Havana and the Church have shown signs of improvement in recent years and the Catholic Church has been granted permission to build its first two new church buildings since the Marxist revolution that led to Fidel Castro taking power in 1959.
The US imposed its trade embargo on Cuba the year after the revolution, as a response to the human rights abuses that followed it.
Successive popes have expressed the hope that the embargo would be lifted and that the two nations' strained relationship would be healed.
Pope Benedict XVI ended his visit to Cuba in 2012 saying that Cuba could build "a society of broad vision, renewed and reconciled," but it was more difficult "when restrictive economic measures, imposed from outside the country, unfairly burden its people".
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