Pope to Mexico's priests: Don't be resigned to
'paralyzing injustice'
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis
on Tuesday celebrated Holy Mass at a stadium in Morelia, capital of Michoacán,
urging Mexican priests, religious and seminarians not to be resigned to the
paralyzing injustice of violence, corruption and drug trafficking.
Veronica Scarisbrick is in
Mexico following the Pope’s five day pastoral visit to the country and reports
on the problems plaguing young people especially in the state of Michoacàn
Michoacán was once known as
‘The Garden of New Spain’. But it’s more likely to be referred to today
as a flourishing garden of drug cartels. So, a place of unspeakable drug
related violence. Interestingly the Holy Mass the Pope celebrated was both in
Spanish and in ‘purhépechan’, the indigenous language of this area.
And in this city where the
drug cartels are incredibly powerful and permeate people’s lives his homily reflected what he called a ‘permanent system’
of violence with corruption, drug trafficking , disregard for
human dignity and indifference in the face of suffering and vulnerability.
Confronted with this reality, he strongly insisted we must not be led into
temptation, the devil can overcome us with one of his favourite weapons:
resignation.
And then Francis spoke of the
value of tapping into our memories when we are tempted. In a special way he
mentioned the figure of the first Bishop of Michoacán Vasco de Quiroga back in
1536. A man, he explained, who left an interesting legacy.
As I discovered this first
Bishop had adopted Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ as a model. Making quite sure the
indigenous people were taught religion, crafts and the fundamentals of
self-government. His legacy lives on to this day. Indigenous people have passed
down their know how and are masterfully skilled craftsmen, producing from
guitars to pottery, from copper products to woven woolens.
Interestingly Pope Francis
referred to Vasco de Quiroga in his homily as ‘the Spaniard who became an
Indian’. One who spoke of these indigenous people “as being sold, humiliated
and homeless in marketplaces, picking up scraps of bread from the ground“. And
one the Pope went on to say who far from being tempted to resignation succeeded
in kindling the faith in the midst of so much ‘paralyzing injustice’.
‘Paralyzing injustice’, a
fitting expression which could relate to today in this land of ‘gentlemen narcos’.
It’s one which affects more
than anyone here perhaps the young people of Morelia with whom Pope Francis
will meet in at the ‘José Maria Morelos y Pavòn’ stadium.
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