TVC E. Final preparations were underway on Sunday (February 14) in the colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas for Pope Francis’ visit, with local residents hopeful that the pontiff’s message of peace will reverberate throughout the poverty-stricken state.
On the 
Pope’s Chiapas itinerary on Monday (February 15) is a visit to the city’s picturesque cathedral, built during the 16th and 17th century shortly after the Spanish moved into the area.
The cathedral won’t be the site of the pontiff’s mass in Chiapas. He has opted to give mass to indigenous communities at a humble sports centre in the city.
Under the surface of San Cristobal’s colonial beauty and indigenous Mayan heritage lies stark poverty, with official statistics last year putting the figure at 76.2 percent of the population.
Local Catholic, Elvia Luna, told Reuters she hopes Pope Francis’ visit will provide some hope for the impoverished state.
“We’re full of hope, full of joy, full of faith because he’s (Pope) coming. I think it’s a new inspiration for a Mexico which is a little sad, depressed. We’ve been through a lot of social, economic issues recently, security (also). I think that Pope Francis’ visit to our country will undoubtedly leave us with a new hope,” she said.
On the eve of Pope Francis’ visit security has been bolstered.
Chiapas was once the scene of an armed indigenous insurgency led by the rebel Zapatista movement that rocked the region with violence in 1994.
Some two decades on, relative calm has returned.
The Zapatistas brought to prominence the plight of the region’s impoverished Maya Indians, who were once so ostracized that they could not even walk on San Cristobal’s sidewalks.
But the age-old issues of development, poverty and discrimination still remain.
Speaking to Reuters, director of the human rights centre Fray Bartolome de las Casas, Pedro Faro, said Pope Francis’ choice of Chiapas was not ideal for the Mexican government.
“Of course the Mexican government had wanted to hide incidents of human rights violations, in fact they didn’t want him (Pope) to come to Chiapas. The fact that he’s coming to Chiapas is a very important and historical sign because it is here where Bishop Fray Bartolome de las Casa was, Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia was also here, one of the most important theologians who chose the poor, the marginalised,” he said.
Pope Francis has chosen an unlikely itinerary for Mexico. After giving mass to indigenous communities in Chiapas he will travel to drug-ravaged Morelia state and then onto Mexico’s former murder capital, the infamous border-town of Ciudad Juarez.
