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
Pope Francis's visit to the Philippines ("Grandpa Francis") as a term of endearment, which he commended. Around 6–7 million attended Francis' final Mass at Luneta, surpassing the crowd at World Youth Day 1995 in the same venue. The theme of Francis' 2015 visit was "Mercy and Compassion" (). Efforts to get Pope Francis to visit the Philippines began at his enthronement, when Cardinal Luis Tagle personally requested the visit. In a pastoral letter dated 7 July 2014, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines announced the theme of the papal visit, "A Nation of Mercy and Compassion." The theme was later shortened to "Mercy and Compassion".