The Cuban President Raul Castro paid a special visit to Pope Francis in Vatican City on Sunday.<br /><br /> The stopover comes ahead of the pontiff’s trip to the US and Cuba in September.<br /><br /> The brother of the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro spoke with the Pope for 55 minutes.<br /><br /> It is unusual for the Pope to meet with someone for such a long time and meetings on Sundays are also extremely rare.<br /><br /> The Vatican said this was strictly private and not a state visit as the Cuban leader is on the way back from Russia.<br /><br /> During their talk the Pope is understood to have highlighted the need to eradicate poverty around the world.<br /><br /> At the end of the meeting Raul Castro gave Pope Francis a medal commemorating 200 years of Havana Cathedral and a painting by the Cuban artist Kocho.<br /><br /> Castro is expected to meet with the Italian Prime Minister Mateo Renzi before leaving Rome.<br /><br /> The first Pope to hail from Latin America helped broker an historic thaw between the United States and Cuba in December.<br /><br /> The two co
