Cuba's former president and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro met Tuesday with prominent Brazilian liberation theologist Frei Betto, state daily Granma reported Wednesday.

Betto, a Dominican-born friar, political activist and author who last year received the Jose Marti Prize awarded by UNESCO, is in Cuba to attend an educational congress in Havana.

According to Granma, Castro and Betto discussed various national and international topics, including Betto's meeting with Pope Francis on April 9, 2014. Images of the meeting were not published.

Since retiring in 2006 due to a life-threatening intestinal ailment, Castro, 88, has remained largely out of the public eye, but this is the second time in as many days that his name has appeared in the news.

On Tuesday, the veteran leader expressed his support for the current Cuban-U.S. efforts to normalize diplomatic ties after five decades of animosity, but added "I don't trust" the United States.

His remarks received wide coverage in the U.S. media, as they were his first public reaction to the Dec. 17 announcement that the two countries had agreed on a rapprochement. Endi