No Surprises Francis

No Surprises Francis

By: Erreh Svaia

“I´m a missionary of god, a rebellious one, and I won´t change”

Alejandro Solalinde

No, honestly I didn't expected Pope Francis to come to México and loudly criticize the corrupt administration of Enrique Peña and el PRI, Francis didn't do it on his visits to Cuba, where the longest running dictator in the world, Fidel Castro created a monarchy for his family, neither in Bolivia or Ecuador, where presidents Evo Morales and Rafael Correa are clearly following the path set by Castro and Hugo Chávez, looking for ways to damage democracy and perpetuating themselves in power in increasingly authoritarian ways.

Ironically the Francis visit to our neighbors in the north (who doesn’t have a big catholic population as México or Brazil) was a more critical one, as he signaled the USA government greedy foreign policies, and merciless capitalism, among other things, which could be seen as a sign of Francis leanings towards the left; In México, strangely, it seems that Francis spoke about corruption, violence, migration and wealth concentration quietly, while government functionaries prayed loudly so no one could hear Francis weak accusations, his voice was not raised and he looked happy “kidnapped” by the Mexican corrupt functionaries who gave Francis and the world a look at the “pretty” side of the country, all this while the major penitentiary massacre in the history of the country, with near 50 deaths, occurred in Monterrey a few days before.

Francis only small symbolic gesture towards dissidence was the visit he made to the crypt of Samuel Ruiz, the Chiapas bishop who actively participated in the peace negotiations between the government and the Zapatist Army (EZLN), Ruiz was an advocated of the Liberation Theology, a church movement associated to the Marxist left that emerged in Central and South Africa as an answer to growing imperialist intervention by the USA in the 70s and 80s, many even believed that Ruiz was the true head of the EZLN, truth or lie, Ruiz and the EZLN were a much needed attention call for the world to be aware of the poor situation of many indigenous groups in Chiapas, México's poorest state, although it was exposed, Chiapas is still in poor economical shape, and it is used as a powerful political base for the corrupt PRI and its cohort, “El Partido Verde Ecologista de Mexico”, a fake ecologist political party who cares little for environment, but cares a lot for money and power.

It's no surprise that Brazil has the biggest Catholic population in America, and that it was one of the first countries visited by Francis, his visit helped to bring peace and to put a pause to a convoluted country, and it was a very much needed helping hand to the damaged image of Rousseff's government, as we all know it was all image and public relations, as Brazil, right after the visit and the world cup spiraled into an economic downslide with critical consequences to the current and past governments, even involving cherished left ex-president Lula Da Silva.

What the Mexican government expected to happen, didn’t work out, as social unrest has made México a not so docile society in the last few years, the effect was a lukewarm one, and it didn’t really helped much to the deteriorated government´s image, as all the violence, corruption and ineptitude shown by the current federal administration is not an easy thing to forget despite all the religious effervescence, Francis might be a very charming man, but just as he wasn’t so critical about the current state of the country, he hasn’t been critical about the recent Vatican´s accusation of corruption, greed and child abuse exposed by the media all over the world, the truth is that the Catholic Church is in bad shape, as it is known in México as having a preference towards richness, privileges and corruption, it didn’t help also that Francis reunited with Patriarch Kirill in Cuba, a trusted ally of authoritarian president Vladimir Putin in Russia.

It seems that a lot of people in México expected Francis to raise his voice in Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (Homeland´s Father) and declare war on our corrupted government, be assured, the church won´t do that, on the contrary, it is here to work in favor on the government on order to appease social unrest, Karl Marx said it best, “opium for the masses”, like in Brazil, but don’t despair if Francis didn’t meet your expectations, as we still have people like Father Alejandro Solalinde and Bishop Raúl Vera willing to fight and risk their lives in the name of god, for human rights, for the weak and the poor in this country.