Andy Gomez, The Miami Herald

On Monday morning I will board a plane in Miami and travel a short distance to Cuba along with Catholic Church leaders and members of the South Florida community. The main purpose of this trip is to join Pope Benedict XVI in a “Spiritual Pilgrimage” to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Our Lady of Charity, the patron saint of Cuba.

I was born in Cuba and left when I was six. Yet I still remember vividly Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries marching victoriously into Havana wearing long beards and Catholic rosaries around their necks. Shortly thereafter, like Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, this so-called revolution took a wrong turn that forced many Cubans to leave their homeland in search for freedom.

We left three days before the Bay of Pigs on April, 17, 1961. I still remember my father boarding the plane with the statue of Our Lady of Charity in his hand...