Pope Francis arrives at the international airport in La Paz, Bolivia, July 8, 2015.  REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

Pope Francis arrives at the international airport in La Paz, Bolivia, July 8, 2015.
REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

On Sunday July 5, 2015, Pope
Francis began an eight day tour of
three South American countries:
Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. They
are among the poorest nations in
Latin America, the region of the
world where 40% of all Catholics
reside. As Pope, this is his second
trip to South America. In 2013 he
attended the Catholic Youth
Conference in Brazil. For this
current trip he wanted to visit some
of the smaller and poorer countries in
the region, which reflects his interest
in the “peripheries”. The focus of
this trip is on poverty and inequality,
reconciliation and renewal. Francis
will not be visiting his home country
of Argentina, partly to avoid papal
entanglement in this year’s
presidential election there. Since the
Pope’s mother-tongue is used
throughout the trip, it will give him
plenty of occasions to set aside
prepared texts (including 22 official
speeches) and to talk and converse
freely with his audiences. He will be
spending 48 hours in each country,
and in each he will be involved in a
number of “common” events such as
an audience with each President, a
“sit-down” with the bishops, an
encounter with representatives of
business, culture, indigenous people,
educators, and consecrated people. It
will be a grueling trip that will test
the stamina of the 78-year-old
Francis, who has only one full lung
and a bad back. It will take him
across the globe to extremes of
temperature and altitude, from sea
level to 11,975 feet high at La Paz,
Bolivia’s capital, and back again,
with multiple in-country flights and a
dawn-to-dusk schedule each day.
Due to the altitude, he will be
spending less than 4 hours in La Paz.
Bolivia’s Culture Minister Marko
Machicao, said that the Pontiff asked
to be provided with coca leaves upon
his arrival in Bolivia to help combat
altitude sickness. For thousands of
years, chewing coca leaves has been
a traditional method of alleviating the
effects of extreme altitude in the
Andes and it is a mild stimulant.
Coca leaves are the key ingredient in
cocaine, but the unprocessed leaf is
legal to use. The heart of the Pope’s
visit is expected to be his public
Masses and the time he spends with
people often on the margins of
society. In each country he will be
involved in events and situations
such as visiting a home for the aged
run by the Sisters of Mother Teresa
in Ecuador, a prison (one of the
largest in Latin America) and a
meeting with members of the World
Meeting of Popular Movements in
Bolivia; a children’s hospital and a
slum area in Paraguay. Another
important feature of the journey will
be a Marian one as Pope Francis will
gather in prayer before the “Virgen
Dolorosa” in Quito and before
Paraguay’s shrine to the Madonna of
Caacupé to whom Francis became
particularly devoted after ministering
to Paraguayan immigrants in Buenos
Aires. Pope Francis will also have
some very personal encounters. He’ll
lunch with a Jesuit community in
Guayaquil, Ecuador where he has
something of a mentor in an elderly
priest and where he frequently sent
his own seminarians to study. He’ll
also pray at the site where a Jesuit
priest, the Rev. Luis Espinal, was left
dead in 1980 after being detained and
tortured by Bolivia’s paramilitary
squads.
Sources: News.VA, CatholicHerald.co.uk, BBC
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