Pope Francis urged young people to turn their
backs on “fleeting idols” such as money and success and instead to
become “protagonists in the construction of a better world” during the
first homily of his week-long trip to Brazil.
He
was speaking yesterday during Mass at the marian sanctuary of Aparecida,
Brazil’s national shrine, ahead of his participation at the Catholic
Church’s World Youth Day gathering in Rio de Janeiro this week.
The
Argentinian pope received another rapturous reception from his
Brazilian faithful following the enthusiasm of the crowds that greeted
his arrival in Rio de Janeiro on Monday.
Though just three days into his
trip, it is already clear that Latin America’s first pontiff is
generating considerably more enthusiasm among Brazilian Catholics than
Pope Benedict did during his visit to the country in 2007.
Protestant sects
During the Mass, the
pope also praised the document produced by the Latin American Episcopal
Conference held in Aparecida in 2007 as “a great moment in the life of
the church”.
As Cardinal Bergoglio, the pope was one of the main authors
of the text which called on the church to adopt a missionary stance and
seek out the faithful.
The text was the Latin
American church’s most considered response to the challenge posed by new
evangelical Protestant sects which have drawn millions of the region’s
Christians away from Rome in recent decades.
After
Mass, the congregation chanted the pope’s name as the stopped to bless a
group of sick and disabled people in wheelchairs. He then spoke from a
balcony to an estimated 200,000 pilgrims who had accompanied the Mass in
miserable weather outside the basilica, promising them he would return
to Brazil in 2017.
The organisers of World Youth
Day are worried that the winter rains which have affected south-eastern
Brazil could turn the site of the event’s main Mass — a large field in
the western suburbs of Rio — into a mudbath.
‘Field of the Faithful’
On Tuesday, 50 truckloads of gravel was scattered over the site in Guaratiba, renamed the ‘Field of the Faithful’ for the event.
Presidents
Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Cristina Kirchner
of Argentina and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela are expected at the site
to attend Sunday’s Mass, the high point of the week’s celebrations.
More
than 335,000 pilgrims have officially registered to take part in World
Youth Day, whose main events are in fact spread over four days.
Hundreds
of thousands more are expected in Rio for when the pope first addresses
the crowds on Copacabana beach later today.