VATICAN CITY, Jan 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Pope Francis will make his first
trip to Panama on Wednesday for a gathering of more than 150,000 young
Catholics from across the globe at the World Youth Day festival.
The 82-year-old pope will use the major event on the Catholic calendar to
address the problems of poverty, corruption and migration in his native Latin
America, church officials said.
“Our youth, particularly in Central America, need opportunities,” said
Panama Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa.
Often, their “hard reality” was a choice between emigration or “falling
into the clutches of drug traffickers,” said Ulloa, in Rome for a preparatory
visit.
It will be Francis’ third World Youth Day event, having presided over the
gathering in Rio de Janeiro shortly after his election as pope in 2013 and
again in Krakow, Poland in 2016.
In Poland, he challenged conservative governments in Central and Eastern
Europe to soften their resistance to migrants seeking refuge from conflict in
the Middle East.
– A voice for migrants –
In a similar way, he is expected in Panama to stand up for migrants from El
Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras who make up the majority of those traveling
in caravans to the US border, despite the opposition of President Donald
Trump and the American right.
“Many of the young people who are participating in the WYD are immigrants
themselves,” Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said.
Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans cross the border into Mexico
every year, heading north in search of a better life. Millions more have fled
economic collapse and political repression in Venezuela, straining social
services in neighboring countries.
“The recent image of migrant caravans from Central America, with all their
suffering, will be very much in mind,” said Ulloa.
– Youth ‘can change the world’ –
In an advance message to the event, Francis said many young people, both
believers and non-believers, had “a strength that can change the world.”
On Friday, he said in a separate video message to the World Indigenous
Youth gathering in Soloy, Panama, to hold on to their cultures and roots by
fighting marginalization, exclusion, waste and impoverishment.
“Return to native cultures. Take care of the roots, because from the roots
comes the strength that will make you grow, prosper and bear fruit,” he told
hundreds of young indigenous Catholics who will join the WYD gathering next
week.
Fighting poverty will be a key theme. Extreme poverty in Latin America hit
its highest level for nine years in 2017, according to a report by the UN’s
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
It said more than 10 percent of Latin Americans — 62 million people —
were living in “extreme poverty.”
The Argentine pontiff lands in Panama on Wednesday after a 13-hour flight
from Rome to begin his seventh trip to his native Latin America.
“The pope wants to get closer to young people, to those who are suffering,
to send a message of hope,” said Gisotti.
– Last trip marred by scandal –
His last visit to the region, to Peru and Chile a year ago, was
overshadowed by protests over the cover-up by church authorities of pedophile
priests.
“It’s a subject which is generating a lot of attention in the church,” said
Gisotti, who said the pope had “no plans to meet with victims” during his
visit to Panama.
The pope will break away from the celebrations on Friday to visit a
juvenile detention center in Pacora, outside Panama City. It was Francis’
personal wish to do the side visit, the spokesman said.
“That’s something that came from the pope’s heart,” according to Gisotti.
He will also visit a center for young people with AIDS on the last day of
his trip.
It is the first time Francis has visited Panama as pope, in what will be
the 26th trip of his papacy, taking in 40 countries. John Paul II visited the
tiny Central American country for a day during a regional tour in 1983.