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March 18, 2012

AP: On maiden visit to Cuba and Mexico, Pope Benedict can't escape predecessor's outsize shadow

by E. Eduardo Castillo and Andrea Rodriguez
The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) - For his first visit to Spanish-speaking Latin America, Pope Benedict XVI has chosen the region's most Roman Catholic country -- and its least.

In Catholic Mexico, towns throw parties for their patron saints, pilgrims prostrate themselves at shrines and many people still cross themselves every time they pass a church. In Cuba, abortions are legal and many adults have been divorced more often than they've been to Mass.

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