Argentina looms large at pope's Havana mass

Between President Cristina Kirchner's presence and a towering sculpture of Che Guevara gazing down at him, Pope Francis's native Argentina will loom large Sunday when he gives mass in Havana.

Francis is seen in Cuba as the island's latest Argentine ally after helping broker its recent rapprochement with the United States.

The two Latin American countries have a long history of close ties and high-profile friendships.

As Francis delivers his homily on the Cuban capital's Revolution Square, Guevara will be looking on from the interior ministry, whose facade sports a giant sculpted outline of the revolutionary's face.

The 36-meter (118-foot) work is based on an iconic photo of Guevara taken in 1960 -- the year after he and Fidel Castro's band of rebels overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Kirchner, a fervid supporter of the pope, will be a more tangible presence at the mass.

She flew in Saturday morning to accompany Francis's Cuba visit, as she did when he traveled to Paraguay during a South American tour in July.

But Guevara's daughter Aleida said she planned to snub the mass.

"What would I do there standing on my feet for hours on end? No," she told AFP.

Aleida, a pediatrician and activist who was born in Cuba, is today a prominent figure on the island -- including in its ruling communist party.

But she said she considered it "hypocritical" of the party to call on members to attend the mass.

Over the years, Cuba and its revolution have seduced other Latin Americans besides Che Guevara, including another famous Argentine, football legend Diego Maradona, a close friend of Fidel Castro.

In January, amid rumors that Castro had died, the aging former leader reemerged from several weeks out of the public eye with a letter to Maradona, who promptly assured the world media the now 89-year-old was alive and well.

Castro calls Maradona the "Che of sports," and the retired football star boasts a tattoo of Guevara on his right arm, which he got when he came to Cuba for a drug rehab program in 2004.

Another Argentine sports star played a bizarre and unintended part in the Cuban Revolution's early days.

In 1958, as the Batista regime fought off Castro's guerrillas, Havana organized a Grand Prix race featuring Argentine Formula One champ Juan Manuel Fangio.

But a gunman from Castro's movement kidnapped Fangio in his hotel lobby on the eve of the race.

When the driver's captors finally released him after several days in captivity, Fangio said: "If what the rebels did was for a good cause, then I as an Argentine accept it."