He told the students their education gives them more responsibility to the poor in their community and to care for the environment.
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The government made it obligatory to teach other religions in schools alongside Catholicism, the faith of almost four in five Bolivians.
Francis returned to the Vatican ambassador’s residence in Quito on Monday night and later re-emerged briefly to pray with those gathered, before retiring for the night. Finally, the Pope came out, gave the crowd a quick blessing and then firmly told them to go home and let the neighbors get some rest.
Francis will now head in his popemobile to Quito’s Catholic University for a speech, the second major event of the day.
The pope addressed approximately 900,000 faithful who braved the cold and rain to hear his homily in Bicentennial Park, Quito – a city recently rocked by anti-government protests. The group has been at odds with President Rafael Correa.
“We are, as the church, truly concerned”, he said.
The pope has made outreach to indigenous people a persistent theme during his three-nation South American tour. The Amazon region has been notoriously polluted and its Indigenous Peoples persecuted, with poverty playing a key role in the environmental destruction.
This video shows the pope traveling to Bicentennial Park along streets lined with people, as well as the full mass.
The pope also pointed out that the utilization of natural resources must not be geared towards short-term goals.
The “will he or won’t he” debate for Pope Francis, 78, started when Bolivian culture minister Marko Machicao said the Argentina-born pontiff “specifically requested” to chew coca, according to the BBC.
“We have huge agreements with the pope’s economic and social policies, agreements on welfare”, said Morales on Tuesday in Santa Cruz, adding that it was the first time he had felt such ideological affinity with a pontiff.
This administration is also continuing the inhumane practice of detaining vulnerable populations and our demand is that it immediately end the detention of families, LGBTQ individuals, people with chronic illnesses as well as those who are differently abled.
“Creation is a gift to be shared”, Pope Francis said.
Francis looked to be in good spirits during his last appearance in Ecuador, where he joked with priests and nuns in Quito after ditching his prepared remarks.
“Proselytism is a caricature of evangelization”.
“Rather, it’s about using our own testimony (of God) to attract those who have become distant, in humbly bringing close to us those who feel far from God and the church”.
His visit today to the high altitude Bolivian capital, La Paz, will focus attention on the 78-year-old pope’s health as he had part of one lung removed when he was younger after an infection that nearly took his life. Since taking power in 2006, Morales expunged Bibles and crosses from the presidential palace and ushered in a new constitution that declared the Catholic-majority country a secular state.
IDENTIFIES WOMAN ON THE LEFT – Pope Francis listens to a speech by Imelda Caicedo, left, a delegate of the Ecuadorian coastal farmers association, during his visit to the San Francisco Church in Quito, Ecuador, Tuesday, July 7, 2015.
“That cry for liberty… did not lack conviction or force, but history tells us that it was only convincing when personalism, the desire for single leaderships, were put aside”, Francis said. The pope’s final Mass in Ecuador featured readings in Quichua, the native language most spoken in Ecuador.
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Francis will arrive in the Andean state from Ecuador, where he will wrap up his stay with a visit to a sanctuary of the Virgin of El Quinche outside the capital Quito. “May he continue to bless the people of Ecuador to whom you are called to serve”.
