Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Cuba on Monday for a three-day visit he hoped to use to improve relations between the Church and the country's communist government.

President Raul Castro was at Santiago de Cuba's airport to greet the pope as he arrived on a flight from Mexico.

Thousands turned out for an outdoor Mass that the pope celebrated at the main square in Cuba's second-largest city.

President Castro and Pope Benedict are to hold talks on Tuesday in the capital, Havana, where he is also to hold a public mass.

There was controversy ahead of the German-born pope's arrival after the authorities arrested dozens of dissidents in an apparent effort to prevent them from using his visit to hold demonstrations.

The 84-year-old Benedict is the second pope to visit Cuba since the 1959 communist revolution that brought Raul's brother, Fidel Castro, to power. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II visited the country in 1998.

pfd/ncy (AP, Reuters)