By John Rice, Associated Press

HAVANA (AP) --- Putting his prestige on the line, President Fidel Castro admitted Saturday that socialists made errors in Pope John Paul II's native Poland but insisted the papal visit this week poses no threat to Cuba's revolution.

In a live television appearance broadcast nationwide, Castro urged his followers, long trained in atheism, to attend Mass with the pope and warned them not to protest papal statements.

"We should all participate in the Masses,'' Castro said, calling for "a great reception'' throughout Cuba from the moment the pope lands at Havana airport on Jan. 21.

"We will show that a socialist, communist revolution is capable of respecting all believers and all non-believers,'' Castro said during his nearly six-hour appearance, which ended shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday. Almost all of his comments about the pope came after midnight.

Castro's exhortation virtually guarantees massive turnouts at the pope's Masses, which climax with a Jan. 25 gathering in the vast Plaza of the Revolution.

"I myself will be at that Mass,'' Castro said.

Castro conceded that it would be difficult for some communists to understand the welcome for a pontiff often seen as a fierce foe of communism. Cuba itself was officially atheist from 1962 to 1992.

But Castro's face grew stern as he warned: "Nobody should raise a single political slogan. Nobody should raise a single placard. ... Nobody should shout "Vivas!'' for any leader of the revolution.

"Nobody should express any sign of protest at any word pronounced on an altar.''

Castro admitted that the pope had opposed communism in Poland. He suggested that may have been due to "historic errors'' by socialists, who imposed a dogmatic Marxist regime under Soviet guidance in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country that fiercely resented Soviet influence.

But Castro said it was "an invention'' to suggest that the pope toppled the Soviet Bloc. And he added: "I am absolutely sure of the good intentions and the spirit in which the pope is carrying out this visit.''

The papal visit, Castro said, had created widespread expectation among Cuba's foes that "the pope is coming to Cuba to meet with that demon Castro in the last bastion of communism, and the hope is that this will be the end of the Cuban revolution.''

But he said the Jan. 11 parliamentary election here, for which officials claim a 98 percent turnout, shows the strength of Cuba's socialist system.

"Should we perhaps be worried that something we disagree with is said? That a word or phrase expresses an idea different from ours? No.''

Castro insisted that with the end of the Cold War, the pope's concerns often mirror those of socialists and he cited extensively from papal condemnations of nuclear proliferation, poverty and inequality.

"This pope is possibly one of the greatest headaches that imperialism has now,'' Castro said.

The Cuban leader also granted the Roman Catholic church many of the conditions it had been seeking for the visit.

Castro said the final Mass would be televised live throughout the country. He said officials would give workers time off to attend the weekday Masses and would help transport people from distant sites to the Masses.

Castro lavished praise on the pope, calling him "a historic man'' of great intelligence and culture.

"Instead of seeing a meeting of an angel with the devil, couldn't one think of a meeting between two angels?'' he suggested with a grin.

© 1998Associated Press