News - February 2016

By the time the action started at the Sun Bowl Stadium Feb. 17 for the simulcast of Pope Francis' Mass from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, scarcely a few hundred people had arrived.

Speaking from the symbolic platform of the U.S.-Mexico border, Pope Francis pleaded for the plight of immigrants while warning those refusing to offer safe shelter and passage that their actions and inhospitable attitudes were bringing about dishonor and self-destruction as their hearts hardened and they "lost their sensitivity to pain."

At the border of Mexico and the United States, Pope Francis blessed a large cross in memory of all the people who have crossed the frontier.

God will hold humanity responsible for enslaving the poor and treating people as less important than profits, Pope Francis told Mexican workers and business leaders.

Pope Francis urged society to rethink its ideas of locking up inmates and throwing away the key, calling such an approach another symptom of the "throwaway culture" he often decries and "a symptom of a culture that has stopped supporting life, of a society that has abandoned its children."

The devil loves Christians—especially priests and nuns—who are resigned to the violence and corruption around them, Pope Francis said.

As soon as Rosa and Sergio Siller heard Pope Francis was visiting Ciudad Juarez, they knew they had to visit.

Shortly after arriving in Mexico City Feb. 12, President Enrique Pena Nieto introduced Pope Francis to most of his Cabinet and senior staff. The next morning, he introduced the pope again to his team at the National Palace in central Mexico City, where presidents and leaders have projected power to the country since colonial times.

Pope Francis warned against moves to diminish the importance of the family, peppering his talk with anecdotes and off-the-cuff remarks that kept a packed soccer stadium cheering, laughing and applauding.

In Segundo Barrio, people having been praying day and night for Pope Francis since he set foot in Mexico.

Paying homage to the culture and ancient wisdom of Mexico's indigenous peoples, Pope Francis urged them to hold on to hope and condemned those who exploit their people and their land.

A little bit of kindness can go a long way when recovering from illness, Pope Francis told a group of young patients.

Pope Francis began his travels to Mexico's "peripheries" by visiting an overcrowded, sprawling settlement known internationally as a hunting ground for girls to force into prostitution and for boys to enlist in the drug trade.

Pope Francis fulfilled his much-desired wish to pray in silence before the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Pope Francis demanded forceful denunciations of drug violence in Mexico from the country's bishops, who have preferred timid pronouncements instead of speaking prophetically on a tragedy that has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past 10 years and left another 25,000 Mexicans missing.

Pope Francis told Mexico's president and government officials that the country's future can be bright only if government and business leaders put an end to a culture of "favors" for the influential and scraps for the poor.

Though their differences are recognizable and real, Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow emphasized their obligation as Christians and as bishops to encourage collaboration among Christians and charity for all who suffer.

Making his 12th trip abroad, Pope Francis was accustomed to collecting interview requests, notes and gifts from the journalists who travel on the plane with him.

Maria Jesus Tlatempa Villa has searched tirelessly for her son, Jose Eduardo Bartolo Tlatempa, a student from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college.

At long last, Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow embraced, kissing each other three times.