The Pope concludes his five-day trip in Ciudad Juarez on the United States border, a city which has also been blighted by drug-related murders.
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Above: Pope Francis. Using first-hand interviews with friends, contemporaries and students, the documentary “Pope Francis – The Sinner” explores how an Argentinian Jesuit and self-described “sinner” named Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the most powerful figure in Catholicism, and how he is working to modernize a church in crisis.
“I lived in a tiny town that was very gentle, and then the (cartel) came in”, Duran added.
Francis denounced the exploitation and exclusion of Mexico’s indigenous people during a visit to the state of Chiapas on Monday.
While Chiapas is the country’s least Catholic state, tens of thousands of people packed into a sports field for the mass held under a papal decree that finally allowed Catholic liturgy in native languages. He also prayed before the tomb of controversial Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who ministered to Mexico’s poorest and supported blending indigenous ways into Catholic rituals, much to the dismay of Mexico’s church hierarchy and occasionally the Vatican.
Earlier, Francis led another outdoor mass with 20,000 priests, nuns and seminarians, who danced, sang and listened to him as he told them to not despair, despite the challenges.
The meeting with Mexican families was his last public event of the day.
“Some have considered your values, your culture and your traditions inferior”, the pontiff told the communities representing Mexico’s 11 million Indians. “Others, intoxicated by power, money and market trends, have stolen your lands or contaminated them”, the pope said at a Mass Feb. 15 with representatives of Mexico’s indigenous communities.
San Cristobal is home to two of the most famed religious defenders of indigenous people in Mexican history: Bishops Bartolome de las Casas in the 16th century and Ruiz, who died in 2011. But under Francis, the ordinations were renewed and members of the diaconate participated in Monday’s Mass.
Suarez Inda clearly backs Francis’ program, echoing the pope’s admonition that “pastors should not be bureaucrats and we bishops should not have the mentality or attitude of princes”. He says “the pope is demanding and wants us to be prepared and in the streets, shoulder to shoulder with our flock”. Contributing to this story was David Agren in San Cristobal de Las Casas.
History’s first Latin American pope has already issued a sweeping apology for the Catholic Church’s colonial-era crimes against the continent’s indigenous.
The quotation expresses a yearning for freedom and for reaching “a promised land where oppression, mistreatment and humiliation are not the currency of the day”, Pope Francis said.
Before Francis entered another stadium in Morelia for a morning Mass, the crowd counted aloud to 43, a gesture to remember dozens of trainee teachers who were abducted and apparently massacred by a drug gang in league with corrupt police in 2014 in the neighboring state of Guerrero. “He made us see that we can’t remain silent witnesses in our life of isolation and meditation”, said Sister Fatima Esemita, a nun from the central state of Puebla.
The pope has frequently expressed admiration for indigenous peoples, particularly their sense of custodianship of the environment.
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Since beginning his Mexico trip Friday night, Francis has repeatedly taken to task the Mexican church leadership, many of whom are closely linked to Mexico’s political and financial elite and are loath to speak out on behalf of the poor and victims of social injustice.
