LEON, Mexico - Pope Benedict XVI landed in Mexico on Friday to throngs of faithful who gathered at the tarmac and lined more than 20 miles of his route into the city shouting the ultimate welcome: "Benedict, brother, you are now Mexican."
Many thought such a warm reception, complete with folkloric dance and mariachis, would not greet a pope some consider distant and academic. But the world's largest Roman Catholic, Spanish-speaking country showed Benedict the same affection as it did to his predecessor, John Paul II, who was dubbed "Mexico's pope" after making five trips to the country.
"This is a proud country of hospitality, and nobody feels like a stranger in your land," the pope said upon landing to wild cheers. "I knew that, now I see it and now I feel it in my heart."
After his Alitalia flight landed, the streets of Leon where the pope will stay took on a carnival atmosphere, with entire blocks exploding in yellow confetti as he passed in his bulletproof popemobile along the 20-mile route from the airport.
People are also reading…
"He came to change all Mexicans," said Maria del Rosario Tamayo Villanueva, who waited to see the pope despite being paralyzed in both legs since childhood. "It was important to come to see him. He is a gift from God."
Earlier on the 14-hour flight from Rome, Benedict called on Mexicans to conquer an "idolatry of money" that feeds drug violence and urged Cuba, where he heads on Monday, to leave behind a Marxism that "no longer responds to reality."
He has spoken out before against drug trafficking, Marxism and authoritarianism in Latin America, including during his 2007 trip to Brazil, his first to the region.
On Friday Mexican President Felipe Calderón and first lady Margarita Zavala greeted the pope at the Guanajuato International Airport in Silao and escorted him along a red carpet amid a clanging of church bells.
Benedict descended the stairs without the cane he had used when he walked to the plane in Rome, the first time he had walked with it in public.
In a tarmac speech, Benedict referred again to the everyday violence that ordinary Mexicans confront, saying he was praying for all in need "particularly those who suffer because of old and new rivalries, resentments and all forms of violence."
He said he was coming to Mexico as a pilgrim of hope, to encourage Mexicans to "transform the present structures and events which are less than satisfactory and seem immovable or insurmountable while also helping those who do not see meaning or a future in life."
Calderón greeted the pontiff by saying, "Your visit fills us with joy in moments of great tribulation."
Many see the pope's Latin America trip as a way to strengthen the faithful in a region where Catholicism has dropped over the decades, though not as dramatically as in Europe and elsewhere.
"One sees in Latin America and also elsewhere, not a few Catholics who have a schizophrenia between individual and public morality," the pope said earlier on the plane. "These individuals are Catholic, believers, but in their public lives they follow other paths that don't correspond to the great values of the Gospel ... so we must teach not just in individual morals but public morals."
Benedict acknowledged the historic nature of John Paul's first trip to Mexico - the first by any pope. The 1979 visit, just months after being elected pope and his first foreign trip, came at a time in which Mexico's anti-religion laws were so restrictive that John Paul was technically breaking the law by wearing clerical garb in public.
John Paul also made a historic visit to Cuba in 1998, where upon his arrival in Havana he pronounced the now-famous words: "May Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself up to the world, and may the world open itself up to Cuba."
Benedict told reporters those words remain true even today, and that John Paul's visit had launched a path of "collaboration and constructive dialogue" in Cuba that continues, albeit slowly.
In Mexico, Benedict said, violence is destroying the nation's young.
The "great responsibility of the church is to educate the conscience, teach moral responsibility and strip off the mask (from) the idolatry of money that enslaves mankind, and unmask the false promise, this lie that is behind" the drug culture, he said.
On StarNet: See more photos of the pope in Mexico at azstarnet.com/gallery
"He came to change all Mexicans. It was important to come to see him. He is a gift from God."
Maria del Rosario Tamayo Villanueva, who waited to see the pope despite being paralyzed in both legs since childhood
