Pope denounces exploitation of Mexico’s indigenous people
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO — Pope Francis denounced the centuries-old exploitation and exclusion of Mexico’s indigenous people Monday and prayed before the tomb of their controversial priestly protector during a visit heavy in symbolism to the rolling hills of southern Chiapas state.
Francis celebrated a mass for Mexican Indians that featured readings in the native languages of Chiapas, a traditional dance of prayer and the participation of married indigenous deacons, whose ministry had been suspended by the Vatican but was revived under Francis.
The visit, at the halfway mark of Francis’s five-day trip to Mexico, was of great personal importance for him. He insisted on visiting San Cristobal de Las Casas, where the late Bishop Samuel Ruiz ministered to Mexico’s poorest and supported blending their indigenous culture into Catholic rituals, much to the dismay of Mexico’s church hierarchy and occasionally the Vatican.
In his homily, Francis denounced how, “in a systematic and organized way,” indigenous people have been misunderstood and excluded from society over the course of history.
“Some have considered your values, culture and traditions to be inferior,” he said. “Others, intoxicated by power, money and market trends, have stolen your lands or contaminated them.”
He called for a collective “Forgive me.”
“Today’s world, ravaged as it is by a throwaway culture, needs you!” he told the crowd that included many indigenous people, some in traditional dress, who gathered under clear skies at a sports complex in the mountain city of San Cristobal de Las Casas.
The soft sounds of marimbas accompanied the mass, which was celebrated in front of a replica of the brilliant yellow and red f acade of the San Cristobal cathedral, where Francis visited later in the day.
At one point, Francis slipped behind the altar where Ruiz’s tomb is located and emerged a few minutes later after a brief prayer, said the Vatican spokesperson, Rev. Federico Lombardi.
Crowds chanted “Long live the pope of the poor!” and “Welcome, pope of the struggle!” as he arrived for the mass. Some 500,000 faithful were expected to see the Pope.
The Pope has often expressed admiration for indigenous peoples, and he issued a sweeping apology last year in Bolivia for the Catholic Church’s colonial-era crimes against America’s indigenous.
He has also spoken out about the need to care for the environment. As archbishop in Argentina, he was heavily responsible for a major document of the entire Latin American church hierarchy in which bishops praised the harmonious way indigenous people live with nature. As Pope, he penned an environmental encyclical denouncing the exploitation of the planet by the rich at the expense of the poor.
Indigenous communities have legal rights to much of Mexico’s forest and desert lands, and have long battled with outsiders to protect them — and to share in the revenues they produce. Mining and commercial logging interests that were granted concessions by national or state governments long denuded or polluted indigenous lands.
Francis’s visit to Chiapas and celebration of native culture was in many ways a swipe at the Mexican church hierarchy, which has long sought to downplay the local culture and bristled at the “Indian church,” a mixture of Catholicism and indigenous culture that includes pine boughs, eggs and references to “God the Father and Mother.”