Pope will meet with workers
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — Pope Francis reaches the halfway mark of his South American pilgrimage today, celebrating his first Mass in Bolivia and meeting with workers’ cooperatives and other grass-roots groups representing the poor whose causes have long been championed by history’s first Latin American pope.
When Francis headlined the first such summit of grass-roots groups at the Vatican last October, he issued a remarkable, off-the-cuff monologue on the injustice of unemployment, the scandal of poverty and the obligation to care for the Earth.
“Terra, Techo, Trabajo,” was his mantra then. “Land, Roof, Work.”
“I talk about this some people think the pope is a communist,” he told the gathering of miners, indigenous leaders and “cartoneros” who sift through garbage looking for recyclable goods. “They don’t realize that love for the poor is at the center of the Gospel.”
Francis arrived in Bolivia from Ecuador on Wednesday, embraced by President Evo Morales on the tarmac of La Paz where Francis praised Bolivia for taking “important steps” to include the poor and marginalized in the political and economic life of South America’s poorest country.
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, came to power championing Bolivia’s 36 indigenous groups and enshrined their rights in the constitution. Under his leadership Bolivia’s economy has boomed thanks to high prices for its natural gas and minerals.
But Morales has roiled the local Catholic Church by taking a series of anticlerical initiatives, including a new constitution that made the overwhelmingly Catholic Bolivia a secular country. As soon as Morales took office in 2006, the Bible and cross were removed from the presidential palace.
In his speech, Francis noted the Catholic faith took “deep root” in Bolivia centuries ago “and has continued to shed its light upon society, contributing to the development of the nation and shaping its culture.”
“The voice of the bishops, which must be prophetic, speaks to society in the name of the church, our mother, from her preferential, evangelical option for the poor,” he said.
Morales recalled how the Catholic Church in the past was on the side of the oppressors of Bolivia’s people, three-quarters of whom are of indigenous origin. But Morales, an Aymara Indian known for his socialist stands, said things have changed with this pope and the Bolivian people are greeting Francis as someone who is “helping in the liberation of our people.”
