Apostolic Journey to Mexico, February 12-17, 2016
From February 12 to 17 Pope Francis traveled to Mexico, where the Catholic population makes up 81% of the total population, according to a study by the Pew Research Center published on February 10, 2016. “Across Latin America, the portion of people who identify as Catholic has declined considerably in recent decades, from at least 90% in the 1960s to 69% in 2014. This decline is largely due to widespread conversion to Protestant (and especially evangelical) denominations.... But the trend away from Catholicism has been less pronounced in Mexico, where 81% of adults identify as Catholic today, compared with 90% who say they were raised Catholic.” In Mexico, Vatican-watcher Sandro Magister explains on his website Chiesa on February 15, the advance by the Protestant sects is manifested almost exclusively in Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, one of the stops on the Pope’s journey. He adds that “in Mexico, Catholics are still twice as numerous [as in Uruguay], in spite of the fact that the anticlerical and Masonic offensive in this country has been much more forceful, prolonged and ruthless.” In reaction to it in the 1920’s there was “an armed insurrection, under the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe and to the cry of ¡Viva Cristo Rey!, which earned them the title of Cristeros and their insurrection the name of Cristiada.” In this second-largest Catholic country in the world, after Brazil, Sandro Magister points out that “only a minority oppose divorce and homosexual marriage,” and at the same time only a minority “want married priests”. Nowadays this country in North America is suffering cruelly from corruption, criminality, the drug traffic and its cartels.
Pope Francis welcomed by President Enrique Peña Nieto.
February 13, in Mexico
On February 13, 2016, Pope Francis was officially welcomed at the National Palace in Mexico by President Enrique Peña Nieto. After a private interview with the head of state, he addressed the authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps. “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 fertile ground for corruption, drug trade, [and] violence,” the Supreme Pontiff stressed, calling for “the construction of a political life on a truly human basis”.
The Pope then met with the episcopate in the Cathedral of the Assumption. Addressing the 130 bishops present, he enjoined them to “allow the Father to assign the place he has prepared for us (Mt 20:20-28). Can we really be concerned with affairs that are not the Father’s? Away from the ‘Father’s affairs’ (Lk 2:48-49) we lose our identity and, through our own fault, empty his grace of meaning. If our vision does not witness to having seen Jesus, then the words with which we recall him will be rhetorical and empty figures of speech.”
In the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Finally, in the afternoon, the Pope visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which preserves the tilma of the Indian Juan Diego on which the image of the Blessed Virgin was miraculously imprinted on December 12, 1531. Standing in the Popemobile for more than 15 kilometers [9 miles], he was cheered by an immense crowd. Then he celebrated Mass in the very modern, circular cathedral built in the 1970’s, after paying a visit to the 18th-century basilica, which is only partially open to the public because of the danger of it collapsing. Speaking to the 12,000 faithful inside and to the 30,000 who were following the Mass outside on giant television screens, the Pope explained that in the silence of contemplation of her miraculous image, Our Lady of Guadalupe “tells us that she has ‘the honour’ of being our mother.” Francis explained that this “gives us the assurance” that our “tears are not in vain.” “Forgive whoever has offended you, console the grieving, be patient with others, and above all beseech and pray to God.” Then he spent around twenty minutes recollected in front of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
February 14, in Ecatepec
On Sunday, February 14, the Supreme Pontiff traveled by helicopter to Ecatepec, in the northern suburbs of Mexico City, to celebrate Mass for 300,000 faithful. In his homily the Pope recalled that the season of Lent is a time for conversion, a time to drive out the temptations of wealth, vanity and pride that assail us, and the seduction of money, glory and power. “Lent is a time for letting our eyes be opened to the frequent injustices which stand in direct opposition to the dream and the plan of God.” We must remember that “we have chosen Jesus, not the evil one,” Francis continued. He added, “we cannot dialogue with the devil, we cannot do this because he will always win. Only the power of God’s word can overcome him.” In this time for conversion God waits for us to heal our hearts, the God of mercy, the Pope insisted.
A bedroom suburb, Ecatepec is the scene of organized criminal activities that victimize women in particular, which meet with “general indifference”, explained French journalist Camilla Panhard at the microphone on Vatican Radio. During the Angelus, Francis responded to that everyday reality by inviting Mexicans “to be on the front line, to be first in all the initiatives which help make this blessed land of Mexico a land of opportunities, where there will be no need to emigrate in order to dream, no need to be exploited in order to work, no need to make the despair and poverty of many the opportunism of a few, a land that will not have to mourn men and women, young people and children who are destroyed at the hands of the dealers of death.”
February 15, in Tuxtla Gutiérrez
On Monday, February 15, the Holy Father took a plane to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, then to San Cristobal de Las Casas to celebrate a Mass for the indigenous communities of Chiapas in the municipal sports center. “On many occasions, your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society. Some have considered your values, culture and traditions to be inferior. Others, intoxicated by power, money and market trends, have stolen your lands or contaminated them.” He denounced these injustices and recalled the certainty that “The Creator does not abandon us.”
After the cathedral of San Cristóbal de Las Casas visit.
After a midday meal with delegates from the native populations, a visit to the Baroque cathedral of San Cristóbal de Las Casas allowed the Pope to recollect himself briefly at the tomb of Bp. Samuel Ruiz, an expert in liberation theology who was nicknamed “the Red Bishop”. Upon returning to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, he traveled to the municipal stadium for a meeting with families. In the crowd, some pro-life activists warned about the threats looming over the family in Mexico, which approves homosexual marriage and the adoption of children by same-sex couples. We see, Francis said, “how the family is weakened and questioned” by those who claim to be modern, by means of ideologies “that have a destructive effect on families, the family cell, which is the basis of every healthy society.” He recalled that “You have a Mother, la Guadalupana” who assures us of “her intercession”: “She is a Mother and is always ready to defend our families... by giving us her Son.” The Holy Father invited the faithful to recite one Hail Mary and asked them not to forget “St. Joseph, quiet, a worker, but always at the forefront looking after his family.”
February 16, in Morelia
On February 16 the Pope traveled by plane to Morelia, in the State of Michoacán, 200 kilometers [124 miles] west of Mexico City. During the Mass celebrated in the morning at Venustiano Carranza Stadium, attended by priests, seminarians, religious and consecrated persons, the Pope insisted on the life of prayer. “With these two words, ‘Our Father’, Jesus knew how to live by praying and to pray by living. He invites us to do the same.” Let us pray persistently every day to this Father so as not to fall into temptation, he continued, the temptation to be resigned about “places often dominated by violence, corruption, drug trafficking, disregard for human dignity, and indifference in the face of suffering and vulnerability.” “We who are called to the consecrated life, to the presbyterate, to the episcopate... ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!’, says St Paul, ‘Woe to me!’ For to evangelize, he continues, is not a cause for glory but rather a need (1 Cor 9:16).” In the presence of a congregation that was recollected, after the enthusiastic welcome, Francis celebrated Mass using the crozier and chalice once belonging to Bp. Vasco Vasquez de Quiroga, the first Bishop of Michoacán in the 16th century, who evangelized the Purhépechas Indians, to whom he rendered this homage during his sermon: “We cannot overlook someone who loved this place so much, who made himself a son of this land.... The situation of the Purhépechas Indians, whom he described as being ‘sold, humiliated, and homeless in marketplaces, picking up scraps of bread from the ground’, far from tempting him to listless resignation, succeeded in kindling his faith, strengthening his compassion and inspiring him to carry out plans that were a ‘breath of fresh air’ in the midst of so much paralyzing injustice. The pain and suffering of his brothers and sisters became his prayer, and his prayer led to his response. And among the Indians, he was known as ‘Tata Vasco’, which in the Purhépechan language means, father, dad, daddy....”
In the afternoon, at José María Morelos y Pavón Stadium, the Pope spoke to Mexican young people about one of the States that are bastions of drug trafficking. “You have asked me for a word of hope, and the one word I have to give you, which is the foundation of everything, is Jesus Christ. When everything seems too much, when it seems that the world is crashing down on you, embrace his Cross, draw close to him and please, never let go of his hand, even if they are dragging you; and, if you should fall, allow him to lift you up.” Without mincing words, the Holy Father declared that “it is a lie that the only way to live, or to be young, is to entrust oneself to drug dealers or others who do nothing but sow destruction and death.... And we say this thanks to Jesus.” “Hand in hand with Jesus it is possible to believe that life is worth the effort, it is worth giving of your best, to be leaven, salt and light among friends, in neighbourhoods, communities, and families.” He concluded: “Jesus, who gives us hope, calls us disciples, he calls us friends.... Everything in him speaks of life. Life in a family, life in a community.”
At the penitentiary of Ciudad Juárez.
February 17, in Ciudad Juárez
On the last day of his apostolic visit, Wednesday, February 17, the Pope traveled to the State of Chihuahua in the northern part of the country, to Ciudad Juárez, which recently was nicknamed the world capital of crime, where he visited the penitentiary holding 3,000 prisoners. After expressing his opposition to a system of incarceration that focuses too much on making delinquents incapable of harm and not enough on their rehabilitation, Francis encouraged the 700 detainees gathered in a yard of Cereso prison compound #3 not to remain prisoners of the past and to open the door of the future: “believe that things can be different.” “You have experienced the force of sorrow and sin; do not forget that you have within your reach the force of resurrection, the force of divine mercy that renews all things.”
At noon the Pope met with 3,000 representatives of labor and business corporations at Bachilleres College. He recalled that the lack of “opportunities for training” exposed young people to become “the best breeding ground for the young to fall into the cycle of drug trafficking and violence. “Profit and capital,” Francis explained again, “are not a good over and above the human person; they are at the service of the common good. When the common good is used only at the service of profit and capital, this has a name: it is called exclusion.” While denouncing “the prevailing mentality [that] puts the flow of people at the service of the flow of capital,” the Holy Father pronounced this warning: “God will hold us accountable for the slavery of our day, and we must do everything to make sure that these situations do not happen again. The flow of capital cannot decide the flow and life of people.”
In the afternoon, Francis celebrated Mass at the border with the United States, which was attended by 250,000 faithful, on both sides of the barbed wire set up along the Rio Bravo. Citing the example of Nineveh, he mentioned “the mystery of the Divine Mercy” which “invites us to conversion, it invites us to repentance; it invites us to see the damage being done at all levels.” The Pope confided: “We cannot deny the humanitarian crisis which in recent years has meant migration for thousands of people.” “Let us together ask our God for the gift of conversion, the gift of tears, let us ask him to give us open hearts like the Ninevites, open to his call heard through the suffering faces of countless men and women.”
At the border with the United States.
The press conference during the return flight
That same evening the Pope flew back to Rome. On the plane Francis gave a one-hour press conference, which was reported by Jean-Marie Guénois in the February 18 issue of Le Figaro. Responding to a question about the American presidential candidate Donald Trump, who says he wants to build a wall between the United States and Latin America and send back 11 million illegal immigrants, the Pope commented: “Someone who thinks only about building walls and not bridges is not Christian. That is not in the Gospel. You have to check whether he really said that. A Pope does not get involved in internal politics.”
Likewise, concerning the parliamentary debate in Italy over homosexual “marriage” and the adoption of children by same-sex couples (see “Procrastination from the Pope and the Italian Bishops before the bill on same-sex unions”, DICI no. 329 dated January 29, 2016), Francis said again that he does not “get involved in Italian politics. The Pope is for everyone. Therefore he cannot get involved in the internal politics of a country; that is not the Pope’s role. As for Catholic members of parliament, they have to vote according to their conscience ... their well-formed conscience.” Concerning the question about allowing divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion, Francis mentioned a couple of remarried divorcées whom he had greeted during his meeting with families in the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez: “This couple was happy. They put it very nicely: ‘We do not communicate in the Eucharist, but we communicate by going to visit the sick in the hospitals.’ For them, therefore, their integration has remained at this point. If there is something more, the Lord will tell them. This is therefore one path, one way.” A path toward “integration-communion”? The Pope left his answer hanging in mid-air....
Finally, Jean-Marie Guénois writes, concerning recourse to abortion or contraception as a “lesser evil” within the context of the battle against the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the Pope answered: “Abortion is not a lesser evil, it is a crime. It is an absolute evil. To kill in order to get rid of someone else is what the Mafia does. As for avoiding pregnancy, Paul VI in the case of a difficult situation in Africa had allowed nuns to use contraceptives because they had been threatened with rape.” On this point, Sandro Magister reacted on his blog Settimo Cielo on February 22: “There is no proof at all that Paul VI explicitly gave this authorization. No one has ever been able to cite a single word [of his] on this subject. However, this urban legend has lasted for decades.... In 1968, Paul VI published the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, which condemned as intrinsically evil ‘any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means’ [HV 14, quoted in CCC 2370].” The pro-life journalist Hilary White explained on her blog on February 18: “This claim, however, must be part of Jesuit cultural legend, since as far as anyone knows it was only based on a claim made in a 1993 Jesuit magazine article by Fr. Giacomo Perico, S.J. In that article, Fr. Perico would use that claim to argue that Bosnian women at risk of rape could licitly use contraceptives. Perico himself was in the Sixties not quite a staunch defender of Humanae Vitae, ... while Paul was still alive.”
(Sources: chiesa/ pewresearch / vis/ apic/ imedia/ vatican/ lefigaro/ settimocielo/ whatisupwiththesynod – DICI no. 331 dated February 26, 2016)
