Correa, an admirer of the pope, had a private meeting with Francis late Monday. The pope, however, has felt more comfortable holding dialogues with these groups than his two immediate predecessors did.
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Fernando Vergara/AP Pope Francis proceeds to the main altar to celebrate Mass at Samanes Park in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Monday.
“We also need to be missionaries within the Church, showing that she is a mother who reaches out, a welcoming home, a constant school of missionary communion”. Since becoming pope Francis has frequently mentioned families in his sermons, including so-called “non-traditional” families such as parents who are divorced or homosexual.
He challenged universities to ensure that students’ educations aren’t aimed only at profitable careers but at helping the poor and the environment. He had so much energy he slipped out again for a second night Monday to greet well-wishers who gathered outside the Vatican ambassador’s residence where he is staying.
Monsignors, Vatican bodyguards and Ecuadorean police are picking the kids up so Francis can kiss and bless them.
As an alternative he will travel the Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay.
When he emerged from the plane, a breeze whipped off his white zucchetto cap and swirled his robes, but the affable 78-year-old took it in his stride, smiling and laughing as he walked down steps to an embrace from President Rafael Correa.
He says: “It seems we’re not being permitted a direct voice”.
Part of the experience of the masses is the experience of the culture and the language of South America. “May the coming days make all of us ever more clearly aware of how close is the sun which “dawns upon us from on high'””. The staff “is very dear to the Pope”, and is the one he brought with him to the Holy Land last May, the spokesman said.
“I’ve come to this spiritual encounter to ask the pope to heal me because I have cancer”, said Franklin Borbor, 48, who despite his illness traveled more than five hours to find his place in the park.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Francis wasn’t anxious about the protests against Correa. “Our people are hungry for God”.
Pope John Paul II arrived at the same Bicentenario Park when it was an airport 30 years ago. “Proselytism is a caricature of evangelization”.
“Evangelization doesn’t consist in proselytizing, but in attracting by our witness to those who are far off, in humbly drawing near to those who feel distant from God and the church, those who are fearful or indifferent”, Francis told the crowd. After Ecuador, the Pope heads to Bolivia and Paraguay on a tour encompassing three of the region’s poorest countries. That’s almost 40 percent of the world’s total Catholic population.
“This is what it means to evangelize; this is our revolution – for our faith is always revolutionary – this is our deepest and most enduring cry”.
“Pope Francis used Jesus” miracle of changing water into wine at Cana to speak of the “miracle” needed for families throughout the world.
Francis is taking it relatively easy on his first full day in Ecuador, making the quick flight to Guayaquil for the Mass at the Shrine of the Divine Mercy and then a lunch with a group of fellow Jesuits.
“How many of our adolescents and young people sense that these are no longer found in their homes?”
He said: “There was no shortage of conviction or strength in that cry for freedom which arose a little more than 200 years ago. But history tells us that it only made headway once personal differences were set aside”. He then gave her a blessing and continued. He said paramedics treated more than 20 people for hypothermia and handed out blankets to the crowd.
Two hydrosuction trucks worked to remove puddles from several inundated sections of the park, Rivera said. They said it was well worth the discomfort.
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The joy of the wedding feast at Cana, he said, began when Mary was attentive to the needs of others “and acted sensibly and courageously”.
