Announcing particulars of the pope’s upcoming visit, the Vatican had some notable details:
On Sunday 14 February, the Pope will travel to Ecatepec by helicopter. Ecapetec means “windy hill” and is notoriously cold so in order to spare faithful the long outdoor wait, he will celebrate mass quite late in the morning, at 11:30 am. He will return to Mexico City in the afternoon. At 5:45 pm will visit the Federico Gómez childrens’ hospital. On Monday 15 February he will be in Chiapas in the south-eastern part of the country on the border with Guatemala and the rest of Central America and therefore a “point of entry for migrants,” Fr. Lombardi said. In this area which is home to a large indigenous population, Francis will fly from Tuxtla Gutierrez to San Cristóbal de Las Casas – the first bishop to step foot here being Bartolomé de las Casas – by helicopter. At 10:15 am he will celebrate mass with Chiapas’ indigenous communities, in the municipal sports hall. Readings will be pronounced in three local languages. At 1 pm the Pope will lunch with the local indigenous people. At 3 pm he will visit the cathedral and at 4:15 he will attend a meeting with families at the Victor Manuel Reyna stadium in Tuxtla Gutierrez. A couple of remarried divorcees are expected to speak at the event. …On Wednesday 17, Francis will visit Ciudad Juarez. As Fr. Lombardi recalled, Francis “said he had thought of entering the US from Mexico and was very eager to visit the border”. Ciudad Juarez is “a highly significant location in terms of the human and social problems faced by Mexico and the continent as a whole”. At 10:30 am the Pope will visit a local prison that houses 3,000 inmates. Francis will meet 700 of them in the prison chapel. At midday he will attend a meeting with workers and employers at the Colegio de Bachilleres of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Francis will then head to the Mexico-US border, where he will approach the metal fence and “greet” those who made it onto the other side. At 4 pm he will celebrate mass at the fairgrounds of Ciudad Juarez. The stage, Fr. Lombardi stressed, “is situated 80 metres from the border and tens of thousands of people are expected to be on the other side of the border, in El Paso,” while an estimated 200,000 people will be present on the Mexican side of the border.
Read the whole story at Vatican Insider.
And today we celebrate...