We have chosen Jesus, not the evil one

Feb 19, 2016

By Joshua J. McElwee
Pope Francis in one heated, off the cuff moment in his homily on Sunday, Feb 14, made a sharp comment that seemed like a reference to the violence in the area.

“We have chosen Jesus, not the evil one,” said the pontiff, almost yelling in passion.“Let’s get this straight in our heads: You can’t dialogue with the Devil!”

One young woman at the Mass saw Francis’ visit to the area as an intentional sign of his care for the people there.

“The Pope comes to people who need him,” said Alexa Olguin, who had travelled from the neighbouring state of Hidalgo. “For that reason, he does not just come to Mexico City; he comes to Ecatepec.”

Ecatepec is a city in the Mexican state of Mexico, which surrounds the country’s capital to the east, north and west. The city, which has a population of some 1.7 million, is one of several in the state which has been experiencing horrific violence against women.

According to statistics from Mexico’s National Citizens Observatory on Femicides, a coalition of 43 groups that document serious crimes against women, 1,258 girls and women were reported to have disappeared in the state in 2011 and 2012.

The violence in Ecatepec has affected young women the most. The Observatory on Femicides reported that 53 per cent of the women who had disappeared in 2011 and 2012 were between the ages of 10 and 17.

Over the same period, the Observatory said, 448 women were murdered in the state. The organization said that the bodies of the dead are frequently mutilated and left in public parks and streets.

Last July, state governor Eruviel Ávila Villegas issued Mexico’s first ever gender violence alert for eleven municipalities in the state, including Ecatepec.

Francis focused his homily Sunday on the practice of Lent, saying that, because the liturgical season is a time of conversion, he wanted to “unmask three great temptations that wear down and fracture the image which God wanted to form in us.”

The Pope said that God dreams of being a father to all humanity, “of brotherhood, of bread broken and shared.”

“Lent is a time of conversion, of daily experiencing in our lives how this dream is continually threatened by the father of lies, by the one who tries to separate us, making a divided and fractious society,” said Francis. “A society of the few, and for the few.”

“How often we experience in our own lives, or in our own families, among our friends or neighbours, the pain which arises when the dignity we carry within is not recognized?” said the Pope. “How many times have we had to cry and regret on realizing that we have not acknowledged this dignity in others?” -- NCR