HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) — Pope Benedict XVI has arrived at Havana’s International airport, after traveling from the southeastern city of Santiago de Cuba.

He was greeted by a large welcoming committee that included Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega and other clergy.

Speculation has swirled over whether the pope will meet with Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro.

Church officials say Benedict is scheduled to meet again with President Raul Castro, along with his family, on Tuesday. The meeting could include Raul Castro’s famous older brother, who stepped down from power in 2006 after battling illness.

Fidel Castro has been invited to meet Benedict, according to Monsignor Jose Felix Perez of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba, but it’s not clear if that will occur.

Also arriving on the island over the weekend was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, reported by Cuban state television to be in Cuba for radiation treatment for cancer.

It’s also not clear whether Benedict will meet Chavez, who has frequently traveled to Cuba for medical care and to meet with the country’s leaders.

Benedict, who had first traveled to Mexico, is scheduled to celebrate Mass on Wednesday in the capital’s Revolution Plaza, where 14 years ago Pope John Paul II addressed massive crowds in the historic first papal visit to the island.

Havana officials have been busy planning for his arrival, splashing fresh coats of paint across buildings and tacking posters announcing the visit across the city.

The trip is timed to the 400th anniversary of Our Lady of Charity, Cuba’s patron saint, but uncertainty looms over what will be said, with whom the pope will meet, and what the visit will actually mean for Cubans.

“For me, I’m very happy he’s coming,” said Juana DeArmas, a shopkeeper in the capital’s Old Havana neighborhood. “I was here when John Paul came, and there were always plenty of tourists that followed.”

The visit is seen as a possible tourism boost to the island’s cash-strapped economy, as many residents seek to make use of a series of free market reforms that have slowly swelled the number of private businesses in the country.

Small privately owned shops have since cropped up along side streets in the Cuban capital, and property — including real estate — can be bought and sold for the first time in decades.

Benedict, 84, arrived in Santiago de Cuba on Monday, and gave a service at the city’s Basilica del Cobre the following day.

Upon his arrival, the pontiff was greeted by Raul Castro and the nation’s clergy, including Ortega.

With a red carpet rolled out to meet the pope’s airplane, Castro walked beside Benedict to a pair of large wooden chairs where the two stood for a brief photo op. A brass band played Cuba’s national anthem and other tunes as they stood together, while artillery rounds were fired off nearby in celebration.

Benedict told the audience that he seeks to emphasize “the importance of faith,” highlighting the need for good relations between the church and the Marxist state.

“I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans, wherever they may be,” he said.

Castro welcomed Benedict, saying his country has worked for peace and justice, but also taking the opportunity to deliver a swipe at the United States.

Even “14 years after John Paul’s visit,” the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba persists, Castro said.

Clad all in white, Benedict walked with the Cuban president, who was dressed in a dark suit, and greeted other state officials and clergy.

Crowds of flag-waving Cubans lined the street on which Benedict’s motorcade traveled, as Cuban state television captured both ground and aerial footage of the trip.

Benedict then celebrated Mass in the city’s square, drawing huge crowds as legions of musicians playing wind and string instruments performed during pauses in his sermon, supported by what appeared to be concert-grade sound systems.

The visit to Cuba is the second part of a two-country tour the pope has used to both spread the Catholic faith and address political issues in the region.

His first stop was in Mexico, where he denounced violence in that country brought by the ongoing drug wars. Benedict also blasted Cuba’s Marxist political system Friday, saying it “no longer corresponds to reality.”

The pope’s comment, delivered to reporters aboard the flight from Rome to Mexico, sparked widespread speculation as to what he would say when he addresses the Cuban people directly.

The island nation’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, responding to the comment, said his government considers “the exchange of ideas useful” and is still perfecting its system.

In 1998, Fidel Castro greeted a much different pontiff when thousands were introduced to John Paul, who famously urged the nation “to open to the world, and the world to open to Cuba.”

“There was a kind of love affair between John Paul and Latin America,” said CNN senior Vatican analyst John Allen. “It just isn’t the same with Pope Benedict.”

In Mexico, an archbishop called on worshippers to stop making comparisons between Benedict and the former pope, who drew massive crowds across Latin America and visited every country in the region before he died in 2005.

In Cuba, though John Paul helped to warm church-government relations, the country’s ties with religion have remained complicated.

Decades earlier, Castro’s Communist revolution sought to stamp out religious influence in Cuba, confiscating church property and expelling religious workers, some of whom had supported anti-Castro forces.

The country was officially atheist until the 1990s, when the constitution was amended and references to atheism were replaced with secularism. Christmas was recognized as a holiday at that time, and Communist Party members were permitted to openly practice their faith, if they had one.

Church officials now say the island is about 60% Catholic, though few openly practice.

Still, religious access to state television and the administration of religious schools remain largely restricted, which could be a point of emphasis during the pontiff’s trip, observers say.

“These papal visits can have an impact,” Allen said. “They can kind of jar things loose. And it seems that under Raul, Cuba is taking baby steps toward normalization.”

But many on the island seem skeptical that the trip will yield lasting results.

While the country’s Roman Catholic Church has often been lauded for its role in recent reforms, it has also received heavy criticism for appearing too cozy with the government.

Rights groups say the nation has largely emptied its jails of political prisoners, and yet it continues to harass the country’s activists.