From these shores, the heartland of the Cuban exile, the announcement that Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Cuba on March 26th has been received with mixed emotions.

“A springtime of faith,” is the code phrase Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski and the controversial Cardinal Jaime Ortega in Havana have used to move Catholics on both shores to embrace the papal visit.

But forgive us, Archbishop, so many of us want to say to Wenski, the beloved priest who leads the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, if that beautiful phrase doesn’t have the intended evocation of the Arab spring. We’re weary of the “signs” from Cuba, which ring more than ever as if they’re no more than another round of false hope.

If in 1998 the charismatic Pope John Paul II, so loved and respected around the world, couldn’t move the needle on freedoms, what can this pope do? What can he achieve with a visit if the image that comes to mind from the last visit is the cynical Fidel Castro sitting in the front row at Mass, playing along with the charade of reverence to the God he expelled from the island 50-some years ago?

How many candles did we not light then on behalf of hope?

How many prayers did we not say?

How much aid was sent to fortify a church that, with few exceptions, has stood silent and soft for too long as the dictatorship has continued to trounce on basic human rights?

“I hope the pope will promote the idea of reconciliation.... I’m talking about the reconciliation of people,’’ Wenski says.

So many people did reconcile after 1998, did find renewed faith and hope with the first papal visit, that I called some of them Tuesday to gather some of their thoughts.

“This is a different timing, in a totally different global environment where nations’ grassroots groups are communicating through social media venues that have given way to democratic changes and people-to-government dialogues,” says Mariví Prado, chief marketing officer at St. Thomas University, who after 38 years of exile returned to Cuba during the papal visit. “I don’t think Diaspora Cubans are waiting for any ‘miracles,’ like a radical change to democracy, but if Cuba Catholics and Miami Catholics unite in faith and solidarity, that is significant.”

People who, in Prado’s words “thirst for the spiritual,” are easy to reconcile. But what some of us see is a government that doesn’t yield and instead of real change offers symbolic and fleeting gestures like a papal visit, or like the commemoration of the patron saint’s 400th anniversary with the pilgrimage of a statue of Our Lady of Charity through the provinces.

The last papal trip to the island, which at first seemed to signify big changes were afoot, proved the futility of any good-will efforts to mend fences with the Castro brothers.

Still, some Catholics find reasons to hope.

After Pope John Paul’s visit, the church won some space to operate on the island and Cubans who wished to worship were able to do so without fear of government reprisals for the first time in decades.

The social work of the church is laudable and has become indispensable.

“The church assists a number of elderly people who have remained in Cuba alone because their relatives have all left the island,” Miami author Uva de Aragón tells me.

She cites examples she has seen herself of social services delivered by parishes in Cuba: a daycare center for the children of troubled mothers in Havana; a meal service and clothes laundering for the elderly in Santiago; the delivery of donations from Miami of coloring books and crayons that make a major difference to poor children.

The church also has become a significant “mediator” on behalf of the freedom of political prisoners, even if that role is a controversial one among the newly freed and the long-exiled, who want to see Ortega stand up more critically against government abuses.

“I have learned with the years that it’s more important to be effective than to be right,” de Aragón says.

But most importantly, de Aragón and Prado agree, millions of Cubans who grew up in the closed island are impacted by images they may have never seen, whether it’s a papal visit or the faithful’s pilgrimage through city streets.

“For people to demand their rights they have to feel good about themselves, and when they acquire spiritual values, they also find dignity,” de Aragón says.

“It’s not only what we see,” she adds, “but what we don’t.”

And perhaps there lies the one sliver of hope for the weary on this side of the Florida Straits.