MORELIA -- On Tuesday Pope Francis is set to meet many of the young people of Morelia, in the state of Michoacán, in one of the most important moments on this, his 12th international apostolic trip.  The city is infamous for its serious crime and drug trafficking problems.  In Mexico the youth population totals more than 36 million, and in the face of violence, poverty and corruption, they are often misled that trafficking drugs is easy money.

 Morelia is a city with around 600,000 inhabitants, 210 kilometres (130.5 miles) from the Mexican capital.  The pontiff’s visit comes after a day spent in Chiapas and before his visit on Wednesday to Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border, from where he will return to Italy.  On his arrival the city’s archbishop, Alberto Suarez Inda, who the pope himself had made Cardinal, greeted the head of the Catholic Church, before heading for the Venustiano Carranza stadium where they will be celebrating mass.

 Speaking in Chiapas on Monday the pope appealed to people to recognise our impact on the earth stating, “We can no longer turn a blind eye when faced with one of the biggest environmental crises in history.”  In his homily during the celebrated mass with the indigenous Mexican population, he continued, “We grew up thinking that we had the right to own the earth, and to plunder it.  The violence in the heart of man, wounded by sin, is shown through the symptoms of illness in the soil, the water, the air, and in the living beings.”

 Speaking in their language throughout the service, the pope spoke out to the indigenous Mexicans to ask their pardon for the times that “in a structured and systematic way your people have been discounted and excluded from society.”  Telling them that “today’s world, rid of the culture of rejects, needs you!”

 After his hard condemnation of drug trafficking on his first day in the country 13 people, five of whom were women, were killed in an ambush at San Ignacio in the northwest of Mexico, where several drug cartels are known to operate.

 Leading on from his speech for the start of Lent on Feb. 10, during his visit the pope also wanted to point the finger at the concentration of the world’s wealth in the hands of a few, at the expense of the many who suffer from hunger.

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