Celebrating Mass for more than 300,000 people in one of Mexico´s poorest and most dangerous cities, Pope Francis on Sunday, Feb 14, took a swipe at the country's rich and corrupt elite, Reuters reports.
Decrying "a society of the few and for the few", he denounced deep inequality and the vanity and pride of those who consider themselves a cut above the rest.
"That wealth which tastes of pain, bitterness and suffering. This is the bread that a corrupt family or society gives its own children," the pope said at the Mass in the city of Ecatepec, which has seen a surge in crime in recent years as it became infested with warring drug cartels.
Francis urged his listeners to struggle to make Mexico "a land of opportunities where there will be no need to emigrate in order to dream" and where drug traffickers, whom he called "dealers of death", would not ensnare their children.
Mexico is home to one of the world´s richest men, billionaire Carlos Slim, and a wealthy political class stained by corruption even as much of the country is steeped in poverty and violence.
The pope warned Mexicans not to succumb to evil: "You cannot dialogue with the devil because he will always win," he told them.
Ecatepec is home to a giant statue of "Santa Muerte", or Saint Death, a cult figure followed by millions across the Americas.
Across the country, more than 100,000 people have been killed in drug violence over the last decade and some 26,000 are missing.
Unlike his predecessor Pope Benedict, who visited Mexico's conservative heartland in 2012, Francis is stopping in some of the country's most troubled corners on his first trip as pontiff.
He will travel on Monday to Mexico's poorest state Chiapas, where he will say Mass with indigenous communities. Evangelical Christian groups have made huge advances in Chiapas, weakening the Catholic Church's influence.
The pope will also meet with young people in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan state where drug gangs and armed vigilante groups have waged a bloody conflict.
He then concludes his trip in the notorious northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, where he will address the tide of illegal immigration into the United States, meet relatives of victims of violence, and visit a prison.
