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| Pope Francis arrives in San Cristóbal, Chiapas, via Mexican Air Force helicopter Photo: Eduardo Miranda |
Jorge Bergoglio has, in the first three days of his visit to Mexico, been a lukewarm Pope.
Captured by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, subjected to a rigorous script and his acts trivialized by Televisa and TV Azteca—replete with their cast of preachers—Pope Francis, the supreme leader of the Catholic Church, has filled his speeches with generalities and commonplaces that contrast with his rebellious reputation.
Except for his chiding leaders of the clergy in Mexico, sunk in their palace schemes and corrupted by their shady deals with political, economic and criminal power, the Pope sweetened his pronouncements and even when, in front of Peña Nieto and cynical politicians, he postulated that inequality germinates corruption, violence and death, he did it so generally that it would apply in almost any country in the world.
And Monday, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, he hardly transcended the commonplace: He urged asking pardon from the indigenous for being misunderstood and excluded from society.
If one goes to a garbage dump, the stench can't be ignored, but the remarkable thing is saying who threw out the garbage.
And we know: He that generalizes, absolves.
Deaf and cynical, the aforementioned members of PRI, PAN, PRD and PVEM applauded him at the National Palace, are photographed with Bergoglio, and even governors Manuel Velasco [Chiapas] and Claudia Pavlovich [Sonora] kissed the papal ring, in another surrender of constitutional power to the religious. [Mexico is officially a secular state; officials are not supposed to publicly engage in religious acts.]
In the first three days of his visit to Mexico, Bergoglio has confirmed what was predicted by Humberto Roque Villanueva, Secretary of Religious Affairs of the Secretariat of Government Relations, who yesterday announced that the Pope would not talk, in detail, about violence, insecurity, poverty, corruption and other serious issues in Mexico:
"What I appreciate, from conversations we have had with the Catholic Church, is that the Pope will refer to these cases in general; he won't single out any. I have the impression that there will be general remarks, applicable to Mexico, of course, but not as specifically as some believe."Roque... included ruling out that the Pope would receive the families of the Ayotzinapa normal school students, although, perhaps, they may attend his public events as spectators, but they will not even be able to greet him:
"It was long thought that they had made some arrangement that he would receive them privately. As far as I have information, this will not happen. What is going to happen is that they will be present in some of the events of a liturgical character of Pope Francis. What I don't know is whether, at that time, he is going to refer to them in particular," he said.This [lack of a] meeting with families of the disappeared, who throughout the country total approximately 27,000, defines Bergoglio very personally and will mark his visit to Mexico. Is omitting this meeting the result of an agreement with Peña Nieto? Maybe. The Church has done politics for 2,000 years.
Last week, Proceso published that Chancellor [of Foreign Relations] Claudia Ruiz Massieu unexpectedly traveled to Rome last January 22, along with Mariano Palacios Alcocer, Mexico's Ambassador to the Holy See, to meet privately with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State at the Vatican, and Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with the States.
At that meeting, according to the newspaper, Ruiz Massieu tried to persuade Cardinal Parolin that the Pope not meet with parents of Ayotzinapa students, because some of the missing had been involved in sending drugs to the United States.
Particularly striking is the annoyance of Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Vatican, over whether Bergoglio will meet with relatives of the normal school students and, in fact, he dismissed it out of hand, because in Ciudad Juárez he will meet with victims of violence, "without distinguishing whether some have suffered more and some have suffered less."
Dismissive, he flatly rejected the people from Ayotzinapa: "Everyone is welcome to the Mass in Ciudad Juárez. Those who don't come are free [not to do so]."
We all know: The Church has set its own agenda according to its interests, and we Mexicans should concentrate more on ourselves than on foreign dignitaries, such as a Pope with a reputation for being rebellious, yet fails to mention pederasty, women, using condoms and couples who are different from the traditional, and also who doesn't make miracles ...
Note
The death threats against me were public and my gratitude to fellow journalists and non-journalists for their public support. The responsibility for finding and punishing the crime, for which I have filed a formal complaint, you know, but it must be stressed, belongs to the government of Enrique Peña. With Anabel Flores Salazar, a colleague in Veracruz, there are already 110 journalists killed since 2000. Not one more! Spanish original
*Álvaro Delgado Gómez is a Mexican political investigative journalist and author. He studied journalism at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and has worked in the Mexican national newspapers El Nacional, El Universal, and El Financiero, as well as the political newsmagazine Proceso. In 2003, he published the book El Yunque – La ultraderecha en el poder, (The Anvil, the Ultraright in Power) in which he researched a secret Roman Catholic fascist organization called El Yunque, ("The Anvil"), active in Mexico since the 1950s, many of whose high-ranking members held high positions in the PAN administration of President Vicente Fox (2000-2006). The book won him the Mexican national prize for journalism in 2003, but he also received several death threats.