Whirlwind last day for Pope in Ecuador
QUITO, Ecuador—Pope Francis had a whirlwind final full day in Ecuador on Tuesday, with an open-air Mass in the capital sandwiched between meetings with bishops, indigenous groups and students and capped by a visit to a famed Jesuit church.
The 78-year-old Pontiff, who has only one full lung, appeared to be holding up well at the start of his eight-day, three-nation South American tour despite the 2,800-meter (9,200-foot) altitude of Quito and a day spent in the scorching sun of coastal Guayaquil.
“It’s always surprising what the Pope can do at his age,” said the Vatican spokesperson, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. He not- ed that several people in the Vatican entourage awoke on Monday with headaches due to altitude sickness, but not the Pope.
“He has said it’s God’s way of helping him do his ministry, his service,” Lombardi said.
Francis celebrated his second open-air Mass in as many days
in Ecuador on Tuesday, this time in Quito, the capital city roiled for the past month by antigovernment protests.
The papal visit coincided with a time of political tension in Ecuador, with President Rafael Correa facing growing calls to leave in some of the biggest antigovernment demonstrations to shake the country in recent years.
A sea of Catholics, many from neighboring countries, held pictures of the Pope or images of the Virgin Mary at Samanes Park as the Pontiff waved from his popemobile before saying Mass.
Firefighters sprayed the crowd with water to keep them cool amid punishing heat as many shielded themselves from the sun with umbrellas.
Authorities anticipated a crowd of more than 1 million people on the second day of the Pope’s visit.
“Family embodies a great social wealth that other institutions cannot substitute. It must be helped and strengthened,” said the Pope, who dedicated his homily to families as the backbone of society.
Family will be one of the themes that will be debated at the Vatican in October during a synod of bishops, as the Church tackles hot-button issues such as single-parenthood, divorce and gay marriage.
Poverty will also be a major topic during this South American tour by “the Pope of the poor.”
The Argentine-born Pope received a hero’s welcome in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s biggest city.
He told hundreds of thousands of faithful that their fami- lies were the bedrock of society but needed to be supported better and strengthened.
Lombardi said it was “plausible and honest” to say 1 million people were on hand.
Miracles every day
Francis praised families as the nucleus of society, calling them “the nearest hospital, the first school for the young, the best home for the elderly.”
He said miracles were performed every day inside a family out of love, but sometimes the love and happiness ran out.
“How many women, sad and lonely, wonder when love left, when it slipped away from their lives?” he asked. “How many elderly people feel left out of family celebrations, cast aside and longing each day for a little love?”
His words brought Janeth Valencia Bersosa to tears, a primary school teacher.
“Francis has given us back hope in our families, in those we love the most, the nucleus of society,” she said. “I wept at each phrase.”
Francis has dedicated the first two years of his pontificate to family issues, giving weekly catechism lessons on different aspects of family life.
Ameeting of bishops on these issues ended last year in bitter divisions between liberals and conservatives, particularly over ministering to gays and to Catholics who divorce and remarry outside the Church.
Church teaching holds that Catholics who enter into a second marriage without having the first one annulled cannot receive Communion.
Francis said he hoped the meeting of bishops on family life would come up with “concrete solutions to the many difficult and significant challenges facing families in our time.”
“I ask you to pray fervently for this intention, so that Christ can take even what might seem to us impure, scandalous or threatening, and turn it … into a miracle.”
“Families today need miracles!” he added.
Francis arrived in Latin America as a wildly popular returning son, a source of pride as the first Pontiff from a continent where for decades he helped shape the Roman Catholic Church. He raised concerns about environmental destruction, the rights of indigenous people and the Church’s legacy in the region.
But he began on Monday with family, a theme central to Catholic life.
“In the heart of the family, no one is rejected,” Francis said. “Everyone is worth the same.”
Francis never mentioned gays or the divorced directly on Monday, but analysts believe he wants to push the Church to take a more accommodating stance.
He pointed to the importance of the October meeting to “consider concrete solutions and aids to the many difficult and significant challenges facing families in our time.”
He asked for people to pray, so that Christ “can take even what might seem to us impure,” scandalous or threatening and turn it “into a miracle.”
The comments, constructed on a biblical lesson about the wedding feast of Cana, seemed aimed at the Church debate.
“The Pope hopes the synod will find a way to help people move from situations of sin to situations of grace,” Lombardi said.
By choosing to begin his trip in Ecuador, a small country, Francis is underscoring his emphasis on the forgotten peripheries. The decision ignited national pride.
Helicopters hovered above, beaming images to television stations, as the procession bearing the Pope’s white vehicle passed throngs of spectators en route to Samanes Park.
Like salvation
“When I got here, I told my wife it felt like wewere entering into a kingdom,” said Julio Bustamante, 47, a factory worker. “It felt like I was reaching a goal that I’ve had for a long time, like achieving peace, salvation.”
In line with his simple style, Francis rode into Guayaquil, a steamy port, in a small silver Fiat marked for the occasion with Vatican City number plates— “SCV 1”—standing for Stato della Citta del Vaticano or State of Vatican City.
On Tuesday, Francis was to return to Quito’s historic center to pray at the famed 18th century Church of the Society of Jesus, a gilded masterpiece of Spanish Baroque that is is on Unesco’s world patrimony list and is named for Francis’ Jesuit order.
After Ecuador, the Pope visits Bolivia and Paraguay on a tour encompassing three of the poorest and smallest countries in South America.
Many of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics hail from Latin America, despite the rising popularity of evangelical beliefs and practices in recent years.