This ended up, he said, producing “bread that tastes of pain, bitterness, and suffering”, and that this was the bread that “a corrupt society or family gives to its children”.
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After delivering mass to hundreds of thousands in the Mexican barrio of Ecatepec, Pope Francis returned to Mexico City to visit a paediatric hospital in the capital on Sunday (February 14) where he thanked medical staff for their commitment in treating the young patients.
Recalling the miraculous appearance of Mary’s image, Pope Francis noted that through such a miracle, “Juan experienced in his own life what hope is, what the mercy of God is”. There, Pope Francis said that during the season of Lent, the Church invites us to renew the gift of our baptism, and not let it “lie dormant as if it were something from the past or locked away in some memory chest”.
Unlike his predecessor Pope Benedict, who visited Mexico’s conservative heartland in 2012, Francis is stopping in some of the country’s most troubled corners on his first trip as pontiff.
For the remainder of his five-day trip to Mexico, Francis planned to visit some of the poorest and most violent corners of the country.
In the Gospel story of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the desert, the pope said, “Jesus does not respond to the devil with his own words, instead he uses the words of God, the words of Scripture. You can’t talk with him because he will always defeat us”, the 79-year-old emphasized, going off-script from his prepared remarks.
The pope urged Mexicans to turn their country into a land of opportunity where there is no need to emigrate or mourn victims “of the merchants of death”.
Since 2005, at least 1,554 women have disappeared in Mexico state, where Ecatepec is located, according to the National Observatory on Femicide.
Pope Francis landed at Havana’s Jose Marti Airport this afternoon and was greeted by Cuban president Raul Castro before being escorted into the airport building for the long-anticipated encounter with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I. Here is a Vatican video of the initial greeting.
In this photo taken on Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016, Pope Francis waves to people as he arrives to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016.
The leader of an advocacy coalition against the killings of women in Mexico is giving tepid reviews to Pope Francis’ homily at a Mass on Sunday. It is a city that has seen one of the highest murder rates in the country, with a weak economy and unemployment.
“It is time to open our eyes in the face of so many injustices that directly attack the dream and project of God”, the Pope said, while also denouncing “a society of the few, and for the few”. Before his arrival thousands lined the streets for a chance to see him.
He urged the people to step up and work together to “make this blessed land of Mexico a land of opportunities”.
The government created a celebratory TV moment out of his arrival with President Enrique Peña Nieto and his telenovela star wife Angélica Rivera welcoming Francis off his plane as a smiling choir dressed in white sung a pop song.
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Francis caps his visit Wednesday in the U.S.-Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s former murder capital, where he is expected to address issues of crime, trafficking and migration.
