Havana, April 28 (RHC) -- Cuban President Raul Castro has received Cardinal Beniamino Stella, a high-ranking Vatican emissary, with whom he discussed Pope Francis' September visit to the island.

The Cuban head of state and the Vatican's prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy held a "cordial meeting" Monday afternoon in Havana, according to an official statement released on Tuesday. The meeting comes six days after the Vatican confirmed the visit by Francis to Cuba.

Stella, who served as the Vatican's Nuncio, or ambassador, to Havana in the 1990s, returned to the island last Wednesday, the same day the Vatican announced the visit.

Francis will be the third pope to visit Cuba, after John Paul II in 1998 and Benedict XVI in 2012.