Scottish Catholic Observer

The Pope participated in a brief welcoming ceremony at Quito’s Mariscal Sucre Airport, telling government dignitaries, bishops and special guests that his pastoral work before becoming Pope had taken him to Ecuador many times.

“Today, too, I have come as a witness of God’s mercy and of Faith in Jesus Christ,” he said.

Mercy and Faith, he said, have shaped Latin American culture for centuries, contributing to democracy and improving the lives of countless millions of people.

“In our own time, too, we can find in the Gospel a key to meeting contemporary challenges,” the Pope said, including respecting national, ethnic, religious and cultural differences and fostering dialogue.

The Papal visit followed a period of public protests over Ecuadorean government policies, reacting to what even some of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa’s supporters describe as his heavy-handed approach. Christian values, the Pope said, should motivate citizens to promote the full participation of all people in their nation’s social, political and economic life ‘so that the growth in progress and development already registered will ensure a better future for everyone, with particular concern for the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters to whom Latin America still owes a debt.’

The programme for the Pope’s July 5-12 tour of Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay is punctuated with formal meetings with government officials and with large open-air Masses, but also with visits to the poor, the sick and the elderly, and prisoners.

On Monday the Holy Father said: “May you never lose the ability to protect what is small and simple, to care for your children and your elderly, to have confidence in the young and to be constantly struck by the nobility of your people and the singular beauty of your country.”

“Ecuador loves life,” President Correa (above right) told the Pope at the airport ceremony, noting that the constitution protects life from the moment of conception.

“It establishes recognising and protecting the family as the basic core of society and commits us deeply to caring for ‘our common home,’” referring to the environment with the same words Pope Francis used in his encyclical, Laudato Si’.

The president said Ecuador’s was the ‘first constitution in the history of humanity to grant rights to nature.’

Twenty per cent of the country is protected in parks and reserves, President Correa told the Pope.