Castro and the Catholic Church - from persecution to praise

President Fidel Castro addresses the audience as president of the Non-Aligned Movement at the United Nations in New York, October 12, 1979. REUTERS/Prensa Latina

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Baptised as a Roman Catholic and educated by Jesuits, Fidel Castro became a persecutor of the Church after seizing power in Cuba in 1959. Nearly 40 years later, he began a rapprochement that was eventually to enable the Vatican to broker a historic resumption of ties between Cuba and the United States.

Despite the contradictions and about-turns, Castro, who died aged 90 on Friday, believed it was possible to be a kind of Christian while remaining true to the cause of revolutionary socialism.