News/International

LEON, Mexico - Pope Benedict XVI thanked Latin America's bishops for their hard work in a troubled region and urged them to continue the evangelization campaign he launched with them at their first meeting five years earlier.

The Pope spoke during a vespers service at Leon's cathedral March 25, the second and last full day of his visit to Mexico. The congregation included about 130 Mexican bishops, along with representatives of other national conferences in the Latin American bishops' council, CELAM.

Pope Benedict said the bishops deserved the "gratitude and admiration" due to "those who sow the Gospel amid thorns, some in the form of persecution, others in the form of social exclusion or contempt." He also recognized that they suffered from shortages of money and personnel and "limitations imposed on the freedom of the church in carrying out her mission."

HAVANA - Cuba's foreign minister said his government is looking forward to welcoming Pope Benedict XVI and exchanging points of view with him, even after the Pope used his in-flight news conference to criticize Marxist ideology.

Bruno Rodriguez, the foreign minister of Cuba's communist government, was asked about the pope's remarks March 23 during the opening of the Havana press center for the papal visit.

"We are looking forward to an exchange of ideas" during the pope's visit March 26-28, he said.

SILAO, Mexico - Arriving in Mexico on his second papal visit to Latin America March 23, Pope Benedict XVI said he came as a "pilgrim of faith, of hope, and of love," promoting the cause of religious freedom, social progress and the Catholic Church's charitable works.

Bells tolled and the assembled crowd cheered as Pope Benedict XVI appeared through the door of his Alitalia plane at Guanajuato Internal Airport in central Mexico. He was greeted by Mexican President Felipe Calderon and other dignitaries, including Archbishop Jose Martin Rabago of Leon and Archbishop Carlos Aguilar Retes of Tlalnepantla, president of the Mexican bishops' conference and the Latin American bishops' council, CELAM.

LEON, Mexico - Thousands of Catholics formed a human wall lining parts of the highway and boulevards leading into and through this industrial city of shoe factories and tanneries in anticipation of Pope Benedict's arrival March 23 -- his first visit to Mexico since being elected in 2005.

Many dressed in white T-shirts and waved Vatican flags as they waited in the hot sun. Others chanted support slogans and screamed as motorists honked horns while passing. Some even began lining up in the predawn hours.

WARSAW, Poland - A prominent victim of clerical sex abuse has rejected the Polish church's stance that it is following a zero-tolerance policy toward priests and offers moral support for victims.

Ewa Orlowska, whose book about her ordeal, "I Accused a Priest," was published in 2008, charged that the church is holding "victims up to ridicule" while "behaving as if nothing has happened."

OXFORD, England - The Dutch church has pledged to fully cooperate with investigations into reported claims that Catholic institutions castrated boys and young men in their care to rid them of homosexuality.

Bert Elbertse, spokesman for the Dutch Catholic bishops' conference, said the bishops found the reports "shocking and appalling" and that they "condemn and regret such practices in the strongest possible terms."

"Our church has been badly damaged by accusations of sexual abuse. The fact that people were unsurprised by these latest claims suggests our image couldn't get any worse," he said.

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT TO MEXICO (CNS) -- En route to Latin America for his second papal visit to the region, Pope Benedict XVI called for patience with the Catholic Church's effort to promote freedom in communist Cuba, and criticized Catholics who participate in illegal drug trade or who ignore their moral responsibilities to seek social justice.

The pope, flying to Mexico March 23, followed his usual practice of taking a few preselected questions from reporters on the papal plane.

Responding to a question about human rights in Cuba, where he will arrive March 26, and where opposition leaders have been arrested after publicly appealing for a meeting with him, Pope Benedict said that the "church is always on the side of freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion."

LEON, Mexico - Pope Benedict XVI will address the pressing issues of poverty and insecurity during his visit to Mexico, along with orienting Catholics toward a missionary mentality, the president of the Mexican bishops' conference said on the eve of the pontiff's arrival.

"Without doubt, he will express preoccupation with the situations the country is experiencing," Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla told Catholic News Service March 22.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict's trip to Mexico and Cuba March 23-28 will be a relatively brief one, consisting of a little more than two days in each country. Yet his visit is bound to highlight a wide range of prominent issues affecting an entire continent of crucial importance to the Catholic Church.

The Pope arrives in Leon, in central Mexico, late afternoon local time March 23. His first full day's schedule will be light, no doubt reflecting concerns for the health of the pope, who turns 85 April 16. Pope Benedict's flight will have taken him across eight time zones, to a city 6,000 feet above sea level (compared to only 70 in Rome).

VATICAN CITY - The Catholic Church's position on the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba is "no mystery," the Vatican spokesman said, and there's a good chance Pope Benedict XVI will publicly criticize the embargo when he visits Cuba.

At the same time, Pope Benedict also will call for greater freedoms -- particularly religious freedom -- and respect for other human rights during his stay in Cuba March 26-28.