LIMA, Peru — Pope Francis tackled politically charged issues
during his weeklong visit to Chile and Peru, decrying human trafficking,
environmental destruction, corruption and organized crime in speeches before
audiences that included political leaders.
At the same time, he called for unity, dialogue and coexistence
in each of the two countries, which have been marked by political tension and
sometimes-violent conflicts. Invoking Mary, he called for compassion, which he
also demonstrated as he blessed a Chilean prisoner's unborn baby and consoled
people who lost their homes in devastating floods a year ago on Peru's northern
coast.
He also acknowledged that the church must address its own
problems, including sexual abuse, corruption and internal divisions.
"The kingdom of heaven means finding in Jesus a God who gets
involved with the lives of His people," he said.
Pope Francis arrived in Santiago, Chile's capital, Jan. 15. Over
the next three days, he met with young people outside the capital, celebrated
Mass among indigenous people in the southern city of Temuco, and traveled to
the northern desert city of Iquique, which has been a magnet for migrants.
On Jan. 18, he arrived in Peru, where he celebrated Mass in Lima
and traveled to the northern coastal city of Trujillo, which suffered
disastrous flooding a year ago, and Puerto Maldonado, in the heart of the
Peruvian Amazon.
In both countries, the pope met with indigenous people and youth,
clearly with an eye toward the Synod of Bishops on youth, scheduled for October
at the Vatican, and the synod for the Amazon in 2019. He repeatedly referred to
the importance of the earth, calling it "our common home," as he did
in the encyclical "Laudato Si'."
"The defense of the earth has no other purpose than the
defense of life," he said.
The trip was the pope's fourth to South America. It came at a
time when politics in the region are increasingly polarized and political and
economic problems have prompted many people, particularly from Haiti, Venezuela
and Colombia, to seek better opportunities in other countries, where they often
face discrimination.
Various countries, including Peru, are also reeling from
revelations of corruption, especially multimillion-dollar bribes and kickbacks
from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
Speaking to an audience of diplomats and politicians that
included Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who had narrowly escaped
impeachment a month earlier because of accusations of influence peddling, Pope
Francis called corruption a "social virus, a phenomenon that infects
everything, with the greatest harm being done to the poor and mother
earth."
He warned political and civic leaders in both countries against
the seduction of the "false gods" of money and power and urged them
to maintain unity by listening to their people, including native peoples, with
their ties to the earth, as well as youth, migrants, the unemployed, children
and the elderly.
The pope stressed the inextricable bonds between humans and the
environment, telling leaders in Chile that "a people that turns its back
on the land, and everything and everyone on it, will never experience real
development."
Both countries have seen violent clashes in recent years over
large-scale development projects in indigenous territories.
In Peru, 34 people died and hundreds were injured in protests by
indigenous groups in June 2009, after the government passed a series of laws
that could have given timber, mining and other industries easier access to
indigenous people's lands. At the time, then-President Alan Garcia said
indigenous people were blocking development in the Amazon.
Speaking in Puerto Maldonado to some 2,500 people from more than
20 indigenous groups, Pope Francis responded directly to that accusation, which
has been repeated by government officials and industry executives in other
countries.
"If, for some, you are viewed as an obstacle or a hindrance,
the fact is your lives cry out against a style of life that is oblivious to its
own real cost," he said. "You are a living memory of the mission that
God has entrusted to us all: the protection of our common home."
The pope listed a number of threats that members of his audience
had described to Amazonian bishops during an encounter the day before his
visit. Governments and corporations promote oil and gas operations, mining,
logging, industrial agriculture and even conservation projects without regard
for the people living in the affected areas, he said.
He linked the survival of native cultures — especially groups
that continue to shun contact with the outside world, many of which live along
the border between Peru and Brazil — to protection of the earth.
"Native Amazonian peoples have probably never been so
threatened on their own lands as they are at present," he said. "We
have to break with the historical paradigm that views Amazonia as an
inexhaustible source of supplies for other countries without concern for its
inhabitants."
He urged indigenous people to work with bishops and missionaries
to shape a church with "an Amazonian face and an indigenous face."
The pope also linked environmental destruction to social
problems, mentioning unregulated gold mining that has devastated forests and
been accompanied by human trafficking for prostitution and labor.
He called attention to violence against women, urging his
listeners to combat the violence that happens "behind walls" and
"femicide," the murder of women because they are women, usually
perpetrated by men.
At every stop along his route, the pope was greeted by
enthusiastic young people, many of whom were volunteers helping with
organization and logistics.
In Chile, he urged them to make everyday decisions about their
actions by asking, "What would Christ do?"
He also encouraged them to continue their education and work for
a better future for their countries, while pointing to the need for improved
schooling and job opportunities. Education, he said, should be
"transformative" and "inclusive," fostering coexistence.
In a moving encounter with youngsters in a home for abandoned and
orphaned children founded and directed by a Swiss missionary priest in Puerto
Maldonado, the pope asked their forgiveness for "those times when we
adults have not cared for you, and when we did not give you the importance you
deserve."
As on all his trips, the pope met with priests, religious and
seminarians, urging them to remember their roots, embrace the wounded world,
maintain hope and spread joy.
Speaking with bishops, he addressed problems that included sexual
abuse and divisions within the church.
In Chile, Pope Francis met privately with sex abuse survivors. He
drew public criticism, however, for his defense of Bishop Juan Barros of
Osorno, who has been accused of covering up sex abuse by his former mentor,
Father Fernando Karadima. The Vatican sentenced Father Karadima to a life of
prayer and penance after he was found guilty of sexually abusing boys.
After the pope told reporters that there was no evidence that
Bishop Barros knew of the abuse by his mentor, and that the accusations were
"slander," Boston Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley said, "Words that
convey the message 'If you cannot prove your claims then you will not be
believed' abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of
their human dignity and relegate survivors to discredited exile."
Cardinal O'Malley, who traveled to Peru Jan. 20 for the 60th
anniversary of the Boston-based Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle,
was among concelebrants at the pope's final Mass in Lima.
In his public remarks to politicians in Chile and Peru, the pope
acknowledged the harm done by sexual abuse, as well as the need to fight
corruption not only in the public sphere, but also in the church.
Speaking to bishops in Chile, he warned against clericalism that
stems from a "lack of consciousness of belonging to God's faithful people
as servants, and not masters."
"A failure to realize that the mission belongs to the entire
church, and not to the individual priest or bishop, limits the horizon, and
even worse, stifles all the initiatives that the Spirit may be awakening in our
midst," he said.
He urged Peru's bishops to follow the missionary St. Turibius'
example of being close to the people, learning the local language and culture,
being a pastor to his priests and encouraging unity.
"Dear brothers, work for unity," Pope Francis told the
bishops. "Do not remain prisoners of divisions that create cliques and
hamper our vocation to be a sacrament of communion."
He also reminded the bishops that the saint had made enemies of
those in power by confronting "a whole system of corruption and a web of
interests" in colonial Peru.
"Charity must always be accompanied by justice," he
said. "There can be no authentic evangelization that does not point out
and denounce every sin against the lives of our brothers and sisters,
especially those who are most vulnerable."