Pope on anticrime crusade
OPEN-AIR MASS: PONTIFF CALLS ON LATIN AMERICA TO COMBAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Visits Peruvian city still recovering from devastating floods.
Trujillo
Pope Francis on Saturday urged Latin America’s Faithful to fight rampant violent crime against women, including murder, while holding mass in the northern city of Trujillo in Peru.
“I wish to invite you to combat a plague across our Latin American region: the numerous cases of violent crimes against women, from beatings to rape to murder,” the visiting pontiff told thousands in Trujillo’s main square.
Half of the 25 countries with the greatest number of murders of women are in Latin America, according to UN Women.
In Argentina, the pope’s homeland, there were at least 254 murders of women in 2016 that authorities think were gender-related, which helped spark the online campaign #NotOneMore murder.
“There are so many cases of violence that stay silenced behind so many walls,” Francis said. “I’m calling on you to fight against this source of suffering, including legislation and a culture that rejects every type of violence.”
Trujillo is still struggling to rebuild after devastating floods a year ago. More than 130 people were killed across Peru between January and April 2017 in heavy rains, floods and landslides fuelled by the El Nino weather phenomenon, which also left at least 300 000 homeless. Hardest-hit was Peru’s northern coastal region.
Francis acknowledged that many families still could not rebuild their homes after the floods – then warned of the “storms” of organised crime.
The pope then boarded his Popemobile to visit Trujillo’s impoverished “Buenos Aires” neighbourhood, which was especially hard hit by last April’s flooding.
“We will see if the pope brings along some blessings. And if we can recover completely from everything lost in the floods. We need him to bring some mercy,” said local resident Lidia Garcia.
As on Friday, Francis was accompanied by Peru’s president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.
Francis, 81, arrived in Peru on Thursday afternoon, the second and last leg of a week-long South American visit. During the first part of his visit, to Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship between 1973 and 1990, and called for protection of Chile’s persecuted indigenous people. –