REUTERS/Daniel AguilarFederal police search men for drugs and weapons during an antinarcotics operation in Ecatepec, Mexico, November 13, 2009. The Mexican hierarchy has long bristled at the region’s “Indian church”. He called on the Mexican government and the country’s bishops to fight against the drug-trafficking and violence prevalent there.
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Francis arrived in Mexico Friday after a historic meeting with his counterpart Patriarch Kirill from the Russian Orthodox Church in Havana, Cuba. The encounter with Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, was the first ever between a Catholic Pope and an Orthodox Patriarch and established a new working relationship between the two leaders that has not been seen since Christianity broke between East and West more than 1,000 years ago.
On his final full day in Mexico, Pope Francis went to visit a pediatric hospital, where he blessed children and was blessed by them in return. “He is the “messenger of peace” because that’s exactly what Mexico needs, not just Ecatepec”. You can’t talk with him because he will always defeat us.
Ecatepec has been afflicted by murders, kidnappings and extortion by criminal gangs.
Pope Francis is scheduled to celebrate a mass in Ecatepec during his visit to Mexico City.
Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield reported this story from Mexico City and Sonia Perez D. reported in San Cristobal de las Casas.
Since 2005, at least 1,554 women have disappeared in Mexico state, where Ecatepec is located, according to the National Observatory on Femicide.
In a clear reference to the drug lords who hold sway there, Francis focused his homily on the danger posed by “the devil” and urged Mexicans to resist the temptations of wealth and corruption.
“In our own deserts we know people are dying”, he said. “May (the pope) give us strength to continue to bear this, to keep struggling against it”, said Maria Dolores Angeles Martinez, a 26-year-old housewife from Ecatepec, wearing a T-shirt welcoming Francis.
Rivera says Ecatepec residents are very resourceful and accustomed to doing whatever is necessary to get by. Thick smoke from a trash fire nearby filled the air.
“What the pope said was important”.
The government is reporting an overall air quality of “bad” and recommends that people suffering from asthma or other respiratory problems restrict their outdoor activities.
Before the more than 300,000 faithful who attended the Mass on the esplanade of the city’s Higher Studies Center, Francis invited Mexicans to “be on the front line and participate in all the initiatives that help make this blessed Mexican land a land of opportunity”.
The pope greeted thousands more while cruising to the Mexico cathedral in his popemobile. There, Francis held what is expected to be the largest mass of his Mexican visit.
In 2002, under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican asked the Chiapas diocese to halt deacon ordinations. The pontiff’s five-day visit included a prayer before the Virgin of Guadalupe shrine, the largest and most important Marian shrine in the world and one that is particularly important to the first Latin American pope.
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The pontiff used the service in Ecatepec, a rough Mexico City suburb, to touch on two major themes of his trip to Mexico – drug violence and the plight of migrants.
