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Pope opens Mexico visit after historic stop with patriarch Pope issues tough-love message to Mexico’s political elite
(about 1 hour later)
MEXICO CITY — Pope Francis kicked off his first day in Mexico with a long popemobile ride past adoring crowds, launching into a day that starts with tough-love speeches to the country’s political and church elite and ends with a silent prayer before the Virgin of Guadalupe at the largest and most important Marian shrine in the world. MEXICO CITY — Pope Francis told Mexico’s political leaders on Saturday that they have a duty to provide their people with security, “true justice” and basic services as he plunged head-on into the drug-inspired violence, corruption and social ills that are tormenting the country.
Cheers erupted as Francis’ popemobile pulled out of the residence where he was staying, and he abruptly stopped to greet elderly, sick and disabled people who had gathered outside. He handed out rosaries to the faithful in wheelchairs and embraced a young boy wearing a surgical mask. Francis began his first full day in the country with a winding 9-mile (14-kilometer) popemobile ride into the capital’s historic center to the delight of tens of thousands of Mexicans greeting history’s first Latin American pope. Despite an exhausting Friday that involved a historic embrace with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Francis obliged their demands and stopped to hand out rosaries to the elderly, sick and disabled who gathered in front of his residence.
Tens of thousands more, bundled against the morning chill, lined his 14-kilometer (8.7-mile) motorcade route to the city’s colonial heart as history’s first Latin American pope basked in the welcome from the largest Spanish-speaking Catholic country in the world. Francis met with President Enrique Pena Nieto at the presidential palace and delivered a tough-love speech to authorities aimed at shaking up the privilege that has long characterized Mexican politics. Later, he was to issue a similarly pointed speech to bishops about their duties as pastors before ending the day with a Mass at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the largest shrine dedicated to the Madonna.
President Enrique Pena Nieto, suffering the lowest approval ratings of a Mexican leader in a quarter century, and his wife met Francis outside the presidential palace. After a brief welcome ceremony, the two men went into private talks. In his speech, Francis said public officials responsible for the common good must be honest and upright and not be seduced by privilege or corruption.
As he flew toward Mexico City, Francis said his “most intimate desire” is to pray before the dark-skinned Madonna. She is the patron saint of Mexico and “empress of the Americas,” and millions of pilgrims flock each year to pray before the cloak that bears her image. “Experience teaches us that each time we seek the path of privileges or benefits for a few to the detriment of the good of all, sooner or later the life of society becomes a fertile soil for corruption, drug trade, exclusion of different cultures, violence and also human trafficking, kidnapping and death, bringing suffering and slowing down development,” he said.
Francis arrived in Mexico’s capital on Friday night to adoring crowds waving yellow handkerchiefs. Mariachis serenaded as his chartered plane pulled to a stop. Corruption permeates many aspects of Mexican society, from traffic cops and restaurant inspectors who routinely shake down citizens for bribes, to politicians and police commanders who are sometimes on the payroll of drug cartels. Pena Nieto’s administration has been tainted by what critics call fishy real estate dealings by people close to him, including the first lady, with companies that were awarded lucrative state contracts.
Along the route to his residence, people chanted in rhyming Spanish: “You see him, you feel him, the pope is present!” and “Francis, friend, the whole world loves you!” Francis said political leaders have a “particular duty” to ensure their people have “indispensable” material and spiritual goods: “adequate housing, dignified employment, food, true justice, effective security, a healthy and peaceful environment.”
Tania Vasquez came with her 6-year-old son, Carlos, and other relatives. She held a pennant with the colors of the Mexican flag and images of Francis, a dove and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Francis’ entire five-day trip is shining an uncomfortable spotlight on the government’s failure to solve entrenched social ills that plague many parts of Mexico poverty, rampant gangland killings, extortion, disappearances of women, crooked cops and failed public services. Over the coming days, Francis will travel to the crime-ridden Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec, preach to Indians in poverty-stricken Chiapas, offer solidarity to victims of drug violence in Morelia and, finally, pay respects to migrants who have died trying to reach the United States with a cross-border Mass in Ciudad Juarez.
“He’s coming to talk tough to us,” Vasquez said. “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.” Pena Nieto, who has sought to make economic reform, modernization and bolstering the middle class hallmarks of his administration, is suffering the lowest approval ratings of any Mexican president in a quarter century.
At one point the motorcade paused when a man ran toward the popemobile, but he was detained by security officers before reaching it and the convoy moved on. Francis’ visit has been cheered by Mexicans who have been treated to six previous papal trips five by St. John Paul II and one by Benedict XVI and are known for their enthusiastic welcomes.
As the pope passed her, Mariana Dieguez was moved to tears and had difficulty speaking. Tens of thousands of people lined Francis’ motorcade route, some watching from balconies, and thousands more gathered in Mexico’s main square, known as the Zocalo, to catch a glimpse as he arrived for his meeting with Pena Nieto. Authorities set up huge TV screens that transmitted the scene inside the National Palace.
“I feel like my heart could jump from my chest. He comes to give us peace because we are living a difficult moment,” she said, alluding to a month-old grandson who was born ill. “We arrived here at 2 a.m. to get a good spot, and we were able to see him up-close. It was very exciting,” said Natalia Zuniga, a 26-year-old Costa Rican who traveled to Mexico along with six others. “It has all been worthwhile to see him and feel his presence.”
On Saturday, Francis meets with Mexican officials and foreign ambassadors at the National Palace. The speech, which is a fixture of every papal trip, is usually the pope’s most political message, and Francis is expected to touch on some of the grave problems facing Mexico stemming from drug violence, migration and poverty. On a broad avenue leading to the Zocalo, hundreds of people waited for hours for the pope to arrive.
The pope also will speak to Mexico’s bishops at the Cathedral of the Assumption. He is expected to urge them to be close to their people and accompany them through their hardships, amid criticism even from within the Mexican clergy that many in the church here are often highly deferential to the wealthy and powerful. “It’s very cold, but it’s worth it to see his holiness,” said Maria Hernandez, 69, who had been there since 6 a.m. “This will be the third pope I’ve seen. Hopefully his visit will help us to be better Mexicans.”
Francis wraps up his day with a Mass at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a silent prayer before the icon. On his first full day in Mexico, Francis didn’t shy from some of the bleakest ills afflicting Mexico: According to government statistics, about 46 percent of Mexicans live in poverty, including 10 percent in extreme poverty. In the rural, heavily indigenous state of Chiapas, where Francis travels on Monday, some 76 percent live in poverty, and 32 percent in extreme poverty.
According to tradition, the Virgin appeared before the Indian peasant Juan Diego in 1531 at Tepeyac, a hillside near Mexico City where Aztecs worshipped a mother-goddess, and her image was miraculously imprinted on his cloak. Mexico’s homicide rate rose precipitously after then-President Felipe Calderon launched a war on drug cartels shortly after taking office in 2006, with the bloodshed peaking around 2011. Murders declined somewhat for the next three years after that, before ticking up again in 2015.
The image helped priests inculcate Catholicism among indigenous Mexicans during Spanish colonial rule, and the church later made her patron of all the Americas. Juan Diego was canonized as the hemisphere’s first Indian saint in 2002 during the papacy of John Paul II. Federal data released in January counted 17,013 homicides nationwide last year. Women have been particularly targeted: At least 1,554 women have disappeared in Mexico state since 2005, according to the National Observatory on Femicide, and last year the government issued an alert over the killings of women in Ecatepec and 10 other parts of Mexico state.
The Mexico trip follows a brief but historic meeting in Havana on Friday, when Francis embraced Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and with an exclamation of “finally,” took a momentous step toward closing a nearly 1,000-year schism in Christianity. While some parts of the country remain relatively removed from drug cartel violence including the capital and the tourist destination of Cancun, notably in other areas large portions of the population live with killings, kidnappings and extortion as a daily reality.
The two religious leaders signed a 30-point joint declaration of religious unity that committed their churches to overcoming their differences. Francis tweeted that the meeting was a “gift from God.” In his speech, Francis urged Mexicans to rely on their tremendous resources human and natural and draw on the experience of their indigenous, mestizo and criollo cultures to confront the problems of today.
Francis and Kirill also called for political leaders to act on the single most important issue of shared concern between the Catholic and Orthodox churches today: the plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria who are being killed and driven from their homes by the Islamic State group. “An ancestral culture together with encouraging human resources such as yours should be a stimulus to find new forms of dialogue, negotiation and bridges that can lead us on the way of committed solidarity,” he said.
Later aboard his plane, Francis said the declaration was not a political statement, but rather a pastoral one. It came from “two bishops who met and discussed their pastoral concerns,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Carlos Sanchez, Juan Zamorano and Jacobo Garcia contributed to this report. Associated Press writers Peter Orsi, Carlos Rodriguez, Juan Zamorano and Jacobo Garcia in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.