Good Friday his advisers, decreed that Good Friday that year would be a holiday. This was Castro's response to a request made personally to him by Pope Benedict XVI during the latter's Apostolic Visitation to the island and León, Mexico that month. The move followed the pattern of small advances in Cuba's relations with the Vatican, mirroring Pope John Paul II's success in getting Fidel Castro to declare Christmas Day a holiday. Both Good Friday and Christmas are now annual holidays in Cuba. In Hong Kong, despite the transfer of sovereignty from the UK to China in 1997, Good Friday continues to
Good Friday Good Friday is a legal holiday and is a day of mandatory school closure for all New Zealand state and integrated schools. Good Friday is also a restricted trading day in New Zealand, which means that unexempted shops are not permitted to open on this day. In Canada, Good Friday is a federal statutory holiday. In the province of Quebec "employers can choose to give the day off either on Good Friday or Easter Monday." In an online article posted on Catholic News Agency by Alejandro Bermúdez on 31 March 2012, Cuban President Raúl Castro, with the Communist Party and