Pope Francis Will Visit Mexico in 2016
Fresh off his highly successful and much covered visit to the United States, Pope Francis has made plans to visit Mexico in 2016.
According to Guardian, Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman confirmed the pontiff’s upcoming visit on a Televisa program. According to Lombardi, the Pope will pray at the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Back in March the Pope said that any visit to Mexico would have to be at least a week long.
Although the full papal plans are as of yet unknown, Francis is expected to travel to a region that borders the United States where Mexican migrants are known to often cross.
As he showed during his recent trip to the Unites States, the 78-year-old leader of the Catholic Church is not afraid to address topics such as the environment or the economy.
If his past statements regarding Mexico are any indicator as to how Francis will behave when he visits next year, the citizens of the largely Catholic county might be in for some spiritual moralizing.
In March, the Pope spoke of the criminal violence plaguing Mexico and chalked it up to the work of Satan. In a TV interview, Francis said, "I think the devil is punishing Mexico with great fury." According to Reuters, the Pope was discussing the disappearance the 43 Mexican students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College who went missing in Guerrero and said that the devil was actually angry with Mexico for its commitment to keeping the Christian faith.
Calling for a unification of the faithful to combat this culture of criminal violence, Francis said that Mexico was suffering from a malaise that "everyone had to put their back into resolving."
The Pope's predecessor Benedict XVI went to Mexico once back in 2012. During his 26-year papacy, Pope John Paul II travelled to Mexico five times.
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