– Wall of light –
Francis’s arrival in Mexico on Friday evening is set to be a luminous affair, with hundreds of thousands of well-wishers expected to line the 12-mile (19-kilometre) route from the airport to the Vatican ambassador’s residence in Mexico City.
The plan is for believers to light up the road Francis’s popemobile will travel with their mobile phones or hand-held torches, creating what local organiser Roberto Delgado described as a “wall of light and prayer.”
Francis will spend his nights in Mexico at the ambassador’s residence in the capital, but will make a series of trips to outlying states stricken by violence and poverty.
To underline his commitment to the plight of migrants fleeing persecution and poverty in search of a better life, his schedule will take in trips to both the southern and northern borders.
His arrival in a country that is home to the second-largest Catholic community in the world (after Brazil) comes a day after a prison riot left 49 inmates dead in the north of the country.
He is also due to visit three places notorious for drug cartel mayhem: Ecatepec in Mexico State, Morelia in Michoacan and Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua.
At Ciudad Juarez, located on the border with the United States, he will deliver an open air mass which believers on the other side of the border, close to the Texas town of El Paso, will also be able to follow.
The cross border service on Wednesday is expected to be one of the high points of the trip, but Francis has said the most emotional moment for him will come with Saturday’s visit to the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
The sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin Mary is one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world. Francis has visited twice before prior to becoming pope and his schedule has been cleared for Saturday evening to allow him as much time as he wants for private prayer before the revered icon of the “Morenita” (the brunette virgin).
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