Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, pictured holding hands with Pope Francis at Castro's residence in Havana last year, has died aged 90.
The Pope, who met with the leader of Cuba's Communist revolution in September, expressed his sorrow at the news in a telegram to the current president Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's younger brother.
"Upon receiving the sad news of the death of your dear brother, His Excellency Mister Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, former president of the State Council and of the Government of the Republic of Cuba, I express my sentiments of sorrow to Your Excellency and other family members of the deceased dignitary, as well as to the people of his beloved nation," he said in the message.
"I offer prayers to the Lord for his rest and I trust the whole Cuban people to the maternal intercession of Our Lady of the Charity of El Cobre, patroness of this country."
Fidel Castro's death was announced by his younger brother on state television on Saturday. He was due to be cremated and his ashes interred at Santa Ifgenia cemetery in Santiago de Cuba on 4 December.
The country has declared nine days of national mourning.
Last year the Vatican helped to broker an historic deal to normalise relations between the US and Cuba, bringing to an end decades of Cold War. Shortly afterwards, in September 2015, Pope Francis met with both Fidel and Raul Castro during a visit to the Cuba. His meeting with Fidel was described by the Vatican afterwards as "intimate and familial".
Read more: the story behind how two letters from Pope Francis brought an end to the US/Cuba Cold War
Previously Fidel Castro had met with then Pope Benedict XVI during his 2012 trip to Cuba, while in 1996 Castro visited St Pope John Paul II in Rome, and met with him again in Cuba in 1998. Pope Francis - then Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergolio - was in charge of organising that visit.
Jesuit-educated, Fidel Castro was brought up in a strongly Catholic family, with his mother and sister, Andela Castro Ruz, being particularly devout. After a May audience with Pope Francis last year Raul Castro said that he read all of Pope Francis' speeches: "If the Pope continues this way, I will go back to praying and go back to the Church, and I'm not joking," he said.
From the archives:
Archbishop says Fidel Castro is excommunicated (1962)
Vatican gives Cuba diplomatic status (1959)
Today the British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, said that his death marked "the end of an era for Cuba and the start of a new one for Cuba's people."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn praised Castro's heroism, commending his social action and calling him a key figure in world history.
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