“Contributing to this story was Junno Arocho in Mexico City”.
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Francis was speaking Saturday to Mexico’s 176 bishops in a meeting at Mexico City’s Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. “In Mexico there are a lot of economic and security problems, there is a lot of egoism, and he comes with a message of peace and hope that we need”. In Juarez, he will also visit a prison.
“Finally”, the Pope said as he and Kirill entered through doors on opposite sides of a room at Havana airport. Chants of his name can be heard inside the basilica.
Tania Vasquez came with her 6-year-old son, Carlos, and other relatives.
Just like Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pope Francis told the bishops that they too are entrusted “with the mission of enrobing the Mexican nation with fruitfulness”.
Thousands of people are lined up along the pontiff’s route to wave as he passes in an open-air popemobile.
Pope Francis kicked off his first day in Mexico yesterday with a popemobile ride past adoring crowds, launching into a day that started with tough-love speeches to the country’s political and church elite and ended with a silent prayer before the Virgin of Guadalupe at the largest Marian shrine in the world.
The rise of Santa Muerte worship over the past 15 years has alarmed the Mexican church and drawn Vatican condemnations, said Andrew Chesnut, religious studies professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, who has studied the pseudo-saint and estimates it now has 10 million followers in Mexico and overseas.
Francis has spoken reverently of his “most intimate desire” to pray before the icon so beloved by Latin Americans, Catholic and not.
Following his audience with bishops, Francis traveled to the Vatican embassy for a rare two-hour break before he continued his packed schedule. In South Korea, it was a Kia. The Vatican helped arrange the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States.
Rather, he said the horrors of drug violence required “prophetic courage” from the church and a pastoral plan that involves families, parishes, schools and communities.
“I do not wish to go forth from here without expressing my sense of gratitude for Cuba and for the Cuban people and for their president Raul Castro”, the Pope added.
Pope Francis hit hardest on the drug issue, something retired Pope Benedict XVI said nothing about in his 2012 trip to Mexico. Mr Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the party which in the past has been the source of very anti-clerical policies. Andrew Chesnut of Virginia Commonwealth Unviersity notes that the Catholic Church views Santa Muerte leaders as “charlatans” who use the image to turn a quick buck.
Still, the mural doesn’t vilify all.
The first visit by the Spanish-speaking pope, who hails from Argentina, has generated great enthusiasm among Mexicans.
The pope is visiting Mexico through next Wednesday.
Francis said he was “particularly concerned” by those who “praise illusions and embrace their macabre symbols to commercialize death in exchange for money”. “This reflects the good relation between the Holy See and Mexico”, Pena Nieto said. He told the president and other members of government that public officials must be honest and upright and not be seduced by privilege or corruption. He will finish his five-day visit by a very symbolic Mass facing the USA border city of El Paso.
Thomson ReutersPope Francis wears a sombrero hat as he meets Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto and first lady Angelica Rivera after his arrival in Mexico City.
The two leaders met in Mexico’s presidential palace mid morning on the first full day of the Pope’s five day tour of the country. On the right, the Virgin of Guadalupe, looks down.
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Thousands of people packed the streets Saturday to greet the Argentina-born pontiff, who had received a red-carpet welcome late Friday. He handed out rosaries to faithful in wheelchairs and embraced a young boy wearing a surgical mask.
