Pope Benedict arrives in Cuba on Monday for the first papal visit in 14 years, his seemingly fierce anti-communist rhetoric masking an increasingly evident pragmatism in relations between the Vatican and the island's communist government.

The pope will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the finding of the statue of the Virgin of Charity, Cuba's patron saint, in an effort to "re-Christianise" a population left largely secular, atheist or indifferent to religion after more than a half a century of communist rule.

The trip includes a meeting with President Raúl Castro and comes soon after the Vatican reiterated opposition to Washington's economic embargo of the island, saying it caused human suffering.

Pope Benedict is not scheduled to meet any dissidents, but he did have some harsh words for the regime as he set off on his first visit to Spanish-speaking Latin America.

"It is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality," he said on Friday.

His comments came shortly before he arrived in Mexico – where many observers also saw a political angle to his presence – 14 weeks before presidential elections, and appeared to boost the governing rightwing National Action Party.

The pontiff's calls for Mexicans to "unmask the idolatry of money that enslaves man, to unmask the false promises, the lies, and the fraud that is behind drugs", could also be seen as supportive of President Felipe Calderón's five-year-old crackdown on organised crime.

The pope met briefly with some victims of the violence that has exploded since the start of the crackdown, but his exhortations "to combat this destructive evil wherever possible" dovetailed with Calderón's own repeated insistence that the death toll of over 50,000 is the responsibility of the drug cartels alone.

Addressing hundreds of thousands of worshippers in the state of Guanajuato, the pope on Sunday said Mexicans should renew their faith to help them through "times of sorrow".

While his message drew a rapturous response from the faithful, his visit has not been not without criticism, particularly concerning the church's treatment of victims of sexual abuse by priests.

Victims of Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, launched a book coinciding with Benedict's visit filled with documents they claim proves that the Holy See in general, and the pope himself when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, helped cover up Maciel's abuse of seminarians for decades.

Benedict has met with abuse victims in other countries, but in Mexico the trip's organisers avoided the issue.

The trip to Mexico was also billed as part of a wider effort to inject new energy into flagging Catholic traditions across the continent. The task is nowhere more challenging than in Cuba, where some 60% of the population were baptised Catholic but only 5% actively practise the religion. The country is filled with abandoned, decaying churches.

The pope is due to celebrate a mass on Monday at a large plaza in Santiago de Cuba in the east of the island, attend a private adoration of the virgin at nearby El Cobre, then celebrate another mass in Havana the next day before returning to Rome on Wednesday.

Cardinal Jaime Ortega, archbishop of Havana, has framed Benedict's visit as building on Pope John Paul's historic 1998 visit to the island, which sealed detente between the Vatican and Havana after decades of mistrust and hostility.

Since then, pragmatism has driven relations between the Catholic church and the communist island that once defined itself as atheist in its constitution. This has allowed the Vatican more influence – it has mediated the release of political prisoners – and given the government a trusted national and international interlocuter while it tries to reform an ossified economy and political system.

Many dissidents – which the government brands US-backed mercenaries – are grateful to the church for brokering prisoner releases, but some say it has become too cosy with the Castros.

Earlier this month Cardinal Ortega asked authorities to oust 13 protestors who occupied the Church of Charity in central Havana. They had demanded the pope air their demands - including the right to travel and political freedoms - during his visit. Police removed, registered and released them.

"The church can navigate difficult waters better than opposition groups without any serious and reliable leader," said Volker Skierka, author of Fidel Castro: A Biography. "The church in today's Cuba is a stronghold against chaos and anarchy in the transition process."

Speculation was rife over a possible meeting with the elder Castro brother and "maximum leader" since the 1959 revolution until he stood aside for Raúl in 2006 because of age and ill health. He is now 85. "Fidel in later years has shown more respect for religious belief," said Skierka. "It makes sense. He's on the border of exit to the other world."

Benedict has also come a long way. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he led the Vatican's campaign against communism and liberation theology, which in the past drew many priests and bishops into leftwing causes across Latin America.