Pope Francis Raps Up Time In Ecuador, Prepares to Travel to Bolivia

Their shared views on the need for wealthy countries to drastically change course to address climate change bump up against Morales’ anti-clerical initiatives that have roiled relations with the local church. But he has alienated lowlands natives by promoting a highway through a nature reserve and authorizing oil and natural gas exploration in wilderness areas. A chulpa is a handmade wool bag containing coca leaves which some people chew to help alleviate altitude sickness.

“When I talk about this, some people think the pope is a communist”, he told the gathering.

LA PAZ, Bolivia Pope Francis arrived in Bolivia on Wednesday, praising the government of leftist President Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous leader whose frosty relationship with the Catholic Church has begun to thaw under the Argentine pontiff’s papacy. The pontiff will spend only a few hours in the capital cit…

He was then due to fly to high-altitude La Paz, in Bolivia.

La Paz airport is situated at over four thousand meters above the sea level and is named as El Alto which indicates the high one. However, in Bolivia, the coca plant is a main agricultural staple and it is even used as a mild stimulant and remedy to some minor ailments, the publication added. “We have come to see ourselves as her lords and master, entitled to plunder it at will”.

In that speech, the pope quoted from his encyclical, saying the Amazon “requires greater protection because of its huge importance for the global ecosystem … it possesses an enormously complex biodiversity which is nearly impossible to appreciate fully”.

Some are shielding themselves under tarps, others with umbrellas.

In his homily, Francis urged Latin Americans to channel the same urgency that brought them independence from Spain two centuries ago into spreading the faith on a continent where Catholicism is losing souls to evangelical movements. In Ecuador he drew crowds totaling almost 2 million people. Together with Quechua-speakers they dominate Bolivia’s western highlands, accounting for 90 percent of the population.

Bolivians will have to wait a little longer for the arrival of Pope Francis.

“As stewards of these riches which we have received, we have an obligation toward society as a whole and toward future generations”, Francis said.

Francis – Latin America’s first pope – is on a tour of the region.

Francis is also expected to speak about his new passion – his defense of “Mother Earth” at some point while in Bolivia.

The Mass featured readings in Quichua, the native language mostly spoken in Ecuador, and Ecuadorean vestments for the pope.

The pope left Ecuador for La Paz, Bolivia, on Wednesday.

Pope Francis walks with his pastoral staff to celebrate Mass at Bicentennial Park in Quito, Ecuador, Tuesday. Per his usual, Francis carried his small black suitcase.

The last visit by a pope to Bolivia was a six-day tour by John Paul II in 1988. But Morales said things are different with this pope and the Bolivian people are greeting Francis as someone who is “helping in the liberation of our people”. “We can not bequeath this heritage to them without proper care for the environment, without a sense of gratuitousness born of our contemplation of the created world”.

In his final speech in Quito, the Pope focused on this conundrum. “Don t fall into a spiritual Alzheimer s, don t lose your memory”, he said.

The pope was traveling next to Santa Cruz de la Sierra before departing for Asunción in Paraguay on Friday.