LEON, Mexico: Pope Benedict begins his first visit to Mexico on Friday with the Roman Catholic faithful hoping he will deliver a strong message of peace to temper a brutal drugs war in the deeply religious country.
The pope starts his three-day visit in the central city of Leon, a Catholic stronghold that has avoided the worst of the turf wars and clashes between drug cartels and security forces that have killed some 50,000 people over the past five years.
But the relentless bloodletting was still in the mind of many of those waiting to see Benedict.
‘The Church has to address the violence, give us a message that there can be change. We are all fed up, our society has been hurt,’ said Ruben Santibanez, a local doctor.
Santibanez was buying a cloth with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe – Mexico’s most revered Catholic symbol – with his sister who had traveled from Los Angeles to see the pope. Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s diplomatic representative in Mexico, said Benedict would not ignore Mexico’s plight.
‘Violence is being talked about, we can’t hide it, but there is a lot more to Mexico than the violence and the desire to live in harmony is precisely what the Holy Father is coming for,’ he said on Thursday.
Crowds of devout Mexicans readied campsites in Leon to await a massive outdoor mass on Sunday where hundreds of thousands of people are expected. Benedict, who will also travel to Cuba on this trip, hopes to rally the faithful in the world’s second most populous Catholic nation as more Mexicans are lured to evangelical Protestant churches.
But the German pope faces a challenge generating the same kind of fervor as his charismatic Polish predecessor, Pope John Paul, who was beloved in Latin America and drew pulsating crowds when he criss-crossed the region in his 27-year papacy.
Highlighting the growing religious divisions in Mexico, a large Protestant church in Leon held a service with hundreds of worshippers on Thursday, prominently displaying a sign that read ‘We are not Roman Catholics.’ (UNI)