William Booth, The Washington Post

HAVANA — The setting was historic. The looming 18th-century Seminary of San Carlos in Old Havana. The attendance remarkable. A hall packed with professors, dissidents, clergy, bloggers, leftists, diplomats. The subject matter once unthinkable.

Just after Pope Benedict XVI left Cuba last week, the Catholic Church hosted a talk by Miami millionaire Carlos Saladrigas, who politely but directly said here in a public forum that socialism — the bedrock of the revolution — wasn’t working anymore on the communist-run island.

“To be honest,” Saladrigas said later, “who could have thought such a meeting possible? Not me. Never.”

But the meeting was clearly a sign that there is cautious but visible change on the island....