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 gives other examples with the sense "of a day or season observed as holy by the church" as an archaic sense of "good" ("good", adj. 8c) as in "good tide" meaning "Christmas" or "Shrove Tuesday", and "Good Wednesday" meaning the Wednesday in Holy Week. In German-speaking countries, Good Friday is generally referred to as "Karfreitag" ("Kar" from Old High German "kara"‚ "bewail", "grieve"‚ "mourn", Freitag for "Friday"): Mourning Friday. The "Kar" prefix is a cognate of the English word "care" in the sense of cares and woes; it meant mourning. The day is also known as "Stiller Freitag" ("Silent Friday")