Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley will join Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Cuba next week.

Benedict left Friday for Mexico and plans to head to Cuba on Monday, where O’Malley will be there to welcome him. O’Malley departs for Cuba on Saturday.

The Boston Archdiocese says O’Malley has visited Cuba about a dozen times in the last three decades, most recently in 2009, when he visited to support local bishops as part of a delegation from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

On Friday, as Benedict flew to Mexico, he urged Cubans to look for ways to replace Marxism, which he said “no longer responds to reality.’’

The Boston Archdiocese said O’Malley is committed to political change in Cuba and an advocate of more open support for the church’s mission to the Cuban people.