New York Times
By Azam Ahmed and Jim Yardley
February 14, 2016
Pope
Francis stepped into the heartland of Mexican inequality on Sunday,
presiding over an enormous outdoor Mass in the impoverished outskirts of
the capital and urging
the joyous crowd not to fall prey to the wealth, vanity and pride that
can create “a society of the few, and for the few.”
By
coming to Ecatepec, one of the country’s largest, poorest and most
violent cities, the Latin American pope placed himself at the center of
Mexico’s identity crisis.
Nagging economic disparity has left nearly half of the country living
in poverty while a mere sliver of society controls the rest — even as
drug traffickers terrorize large parts of the nation.
Standing
on a gigantic stage before several hundred thousand people, Francis
told his listeners that the Lenten season, which began last week, is one
of conversion, and
that Mexico needed conversion. He asked Mexicans to turn their nation
into “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.”
Francis
arrived in Mexico on Friday night, and on Saturday met President
Enrique Peña Nieto at the National Palace in Mexico City before
addressing Mexico’s bishops. His
trip to Ecatepec was barely 20 miles away, yet it delivered Francis to a
different world, one emblematic of what he often calls “the
peripheries,” the neglected places at the edges of wealth or political
power.
“They
take advantage of us with lies, while they sell the country bit by
bit,” said Valdomero Guzmán Peros, 60, a resident of Ecatepec who rode
his bicycle to the Mass,
describing the government. “We are all hoping that the pope will bring a
message to the powerful of our country that they must work for both the
rich and the poor.”
The
Mass marked the beginning of Francis’s tour of the Mexican peripheries,
touching down in locales his predecessors largely skipped before his
planned departure on Wednesday
evening. Among other places, he will go to the southern border to meet
with Mexico’s indigenous people, and to the north to address
immigration.
In
Ecatepec, violence by organized crime is on the rise even as chunks of
the city are being transformed into luxurious shopping centers well out
of reach of its residents.
During his years as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis dedicated much
time to working in slums that had many of the same problems.
While
not the poorest of the cities and towns surrounding the capital,
Ecatepec, population 1.7 million, is home to the largest number of
people without access to health
care and social services in the State of Mexico.
“Ecatepec
gathers victims at the economic and urban level,” said Sergio Aguayo, a
political analyst in Mexico, “a place that symbolizes the devastation
of the quality
of life of most of its population. It is also a symptom of the way in
which organized crime is slowly penetrating Mexico’s biggest cities and
how this has resulted in a spike of murder rates, kidnapping and
extortions.”
The
crowds pulsed with energy early Sunday, walking miles down closed
highways from across the region to attend. For the Mass, officials
designated a giant open field,
which had been covered in gravel and outfitted with more than 30 giant
television screens and towering speakers to pump out the pontiff’s
message. Families gathered in the heat, using blankets strung up on the
fencing for shade.
In
his homily, Francis warned against the “three temptations” of wealth,
vanity and pride, and, in what could be interpreted as an oblique swipe
at the Mexican elite,
warned against societies in which the few enrich themselves and take
the “bread” on the “toil of others.”
“This is the bread that a corrupt family or society gives its own children,” Francis said.
Upon
his arrival, Francis traveled through a new development of tidy
condominiums, as well as a megamall with stores like Starbucks, Sears
and Burger King less than a
mile from one of the country’s worst slums. Many Mexican commentators
said the picture of prosperity that the government hoped would be
validated by Francis’s presence was false.
Later
in the day, Francis was again swept into the economic divide while
visiting a hospital for children in Mexico City. There, he was joined by
the first lady of Mexico
and, according to the event itinerary, the son of the richest man in
Mexico, Carlos Slim.
Along
the route in Ecatepec, industrious street vendors created a bustling
papal market, where hundreds of entrepreneurs spent the morning hawking
plates, T-shirts and
key chains bearing Francis’ image.
And
yet even that commerce, to some degree, reflected Mexico’s split
reality. More than 60 percent of Mexico’s economy remains informal, and
workers say the burden of
taxes and bureaucracy prevents them from joining the formal sector.
“I
know these people are coming to ask for help, but who is there to help
them?” asked Claudia Rodriguez Ayala, 46, a vendor selling sandwiches,
water and cigarettes along
the papal route. “Most feel if they come, they can get some manner of
help through faith.”
As throngs of people marched past, she smiled and fished out a bottle of water from her cooler.
“Or at least lower taxes ordered by the president,” she said.
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