Yahoo – AFP,
Catherine MARCIANO, January 17, 2018
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Pope Francis celebrates an open-air mass at Maquehue airport in Temuco,
the heartland of the country's indigenous peoples (AFP Photo/Vincenzo PINTO) |
Temuco
(Chile) (AFP) - Pope Francis denounced the use of violence in the struggle for indigenous
rights Wednesday, celebrating mass in a restive region of Chile hours after
assailants firebombed churches and other targets.
The
Argentine-born pontiff was shining the spotlight on the simmering conflict
between the state and the Mapuche people, who centuries ago controlled vast
areas of Chile but have since been marginalized.
"You
cannot assert yourself by destroying others, because this only leads to more
violence and division," the pope said, speaking before thousands of
faithful at an airfield in Temuco, the capital of the southern Araucania
region.
"Violence
begets violence, destruction increases fragmentation and separation. Violence
eventually makes a most just cause into a lie," the pope warned.
"That
is why we say 'no to destructive violence' in either of its two forms."
Unidentified
assailants hurled incendiary devices at three Catholic churches and an
evangelical Christian church in pre-dawn attacks Wednesday in the Araucania
region.
Five other
churches had previously been hit by arsonists in Chile's capital Santiago.
A forestry
company helicopter also was torched during the night, and a policeman was shot
and wounded by a group of hooded assailants, authorities said.
The aim was
to "cause disorder or disturbance of the public order" during the
pope's visit to Temuco, said Chilean police chief Bruno Villalobos.
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This
handout photograph shows a burnt helicopter belonging to a forestry company,
set afire by unknown attackers ahead of Pope Francis's visit to the indigenous
Mapuche homeland of Araucania in Chile (AFP Photo/MANUEL ARANEDA/ATON CHILE)
|
Simmering
conflict
At the
pope's first stop in Santiago, protests over the church's handling of clergy
abuse dominated the visit, his first to Chile as the leader of the world's 1.2
billion Catholics.
In Temuco,
however, the papal spotlight turned to the Mapuche, who today account for seven
percent of Chile's population, but hold only five percent of their ancestral
lands.
Francis was
scheduled to meet after the mass with a group of indigenous people whose
identities have not yet been revealed by organizers, before returning to
Santiago, where he will meet with youths at the Maipu shrine and visit a
Catholic university.
Thousands
waited from the early hours of Wednesday at the Maquehue airfield to hear the
pope, who dedicated the mass to the victims of human rights abuses during the
1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Pope
Francis said he chose to celebrate mass at the airfield because of its history
as a detention center during the military regime.
"This
celebration we offer for all who suffered and died and for those who each day
carry on their backs the weight of so many injustices," he said.
On
Thursday, he will visit the northern coastal city of Iquique, an immigration
hotspot, before proceeding to Peru.
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Pope
Francis waves from the popemobile as he arrives at Maquehue airport in
Temuco
to celebrate an open-air mass (AFP Photo/Vincenzo PINTO)
|
Sexual
abuse
On Tuesday
in Santiago, the pope conferred alone with a small group of victims of sexual
abuse by priests in Chile, after he publicly asked for forgiveness and riot
police broke up a protest near the first public mass of his South American
visit.
During the
"strictly private" meeting at the Vatican embassy in the capital, the
victims "spoke of their suffering to Pope Francis, who listened to them
and prayed and cried with them," the Vatican said.
Earlier,
the 81-year-old pontiff said: "I cannot begin to express the pain and
shame that I feel over the irreparable harm caused to children by some
ministers of the church," vowing to commit to ensure the abuses would
never happen again.
Francis
made those comments during a visit to President Michelle Bachelet's official
Moneda Palace residence, drawing applause from pilgrims watching on giant
screens in a park where he later celebrated an open-air mass for some 400,000
people.
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Riot police arrested several demonstrators protesting against Pope Francis's
visit to Chile (AFP Photo/Eitan ABRAMOVICH) |
'Pedophile accomplices'
But the
pope did not receive a universal welcome, with scuffles breaking out between
riot police and demonstrators near O'Higgins Park.
Police used
armored vehicles to fire water cannons at the demonstrators, bundling some of
them into vans. More than 50 people were arrested, authorities said.
His visit
was preceded by the release of a report outlining the depth of sexual abuse in
the local church, and his appointment of a bishop who many Chileans accuse of
covering up the country's most prominent sex abuse scandal.
The
US-based NGO Bishop Accountability said that almost 80 Roman Catholic clergy
members had been accused of sexually abusing children in Chile since 2000.
For some
victims, the pope's request for forgiveness did not go far enough.
"We
need concrete actions that the pope has not taken with the Chilean
church," said Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman for a lay association in the
southern city of Osorno.
Claret's
group is demanding Francis remove Osorno bishop Juan Barros, whom he appointed
in 2015, despite Barros's ties to a disgraced pedophile priest Fernando
Karadima.
