Pope Francis’ South American Trip to Address ‘Throwaway Culture’
History’s first Latin American pope returned to Spanish-speaking South America for the first time on Sunday, bringing a message of solidarity with the region’s poor, who are expected to turn out in droves to welcome their native son home.
“The pope of the poor” chose to visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay specifically because they are among the poorest and most marginal nations of a region that claims 40 percent of the world’s Catholics. He’s skipping his homeland of Argentina, at least partly to avoid papal entanglement in this year’s presidential election.
Francis’ plane landed in Quito, Ecuador, where thousands of people lined the motorcade route that the pope will take to the Vatican ambassador’s residence where he’ll stay for the first leg of the trip that ends July 13.
Pilgrims came from far and wide. A small group of Colombians had already set up tents at the former site of Quito’s...