Pope’s Cuba Stance Splits Cuban-American Catholics

Pope Francis' role in encouraging better relations between the United States and Cuba is causing major tensions among Catholics in Miami.

Some Cuban-American Catholics praise the pope for encouraging progress but others, mainly those who are exiles, associate Raul Castro with the devil and are feeling betrayed and abandoned by their spiritual leader.

“I’m still Catholic till the day I die. But I am a Catholic without a pope," Efrain Rivas, a 53-year-old in Miami, told The Blaze. Rivas was a political prisoner in Cuba for 16 years.

Protesters have been taking to the streets of Miami since last week when President Barack Obama announced the shift, angry that the United States abandoned its half-century policy of isolating Cuba.