MEXICO CITY – Mexicans turned out in droves to oust the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in June 5 regional elections. Exit polls showed voters citing crime and corruption for removing the party of increasingly unpopular President Enrique Pena Nieto in seven of the 12 states holding gubernatorial elections.

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TORONTO – Mexico is ready for social change. The problem is that no one can agree on where to start, said Miguel Alvarez Gandara.

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MEXICO CITY – A Catholic bishop in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero has called for compassion toward the impoverished populations harvesting opium poppies out of necessity, saying such people are not sinners and are neglected by the government.

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MEXICO CITY - The archbishop of Acapulco called on organized crime to cease violence during Holy Week, when thousands of Mexicans descend on the seaside city for the Easter holidays.

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ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM MEXICO - As the plane carrying him back to Rome from Mexico was flying over Texas, Pope Francis insisted building walls to keep immigrants out of one's country is un-Christian.

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EL PASO, Texas - By the time the action started at the Sun Bowl Stadium Feb. 17 for the simulcast of Pope Francis' Mass from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, scarcely a few hundred people had arrived.

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Speaking from the symbolic platform of the U.S.-Mexico border, Pope Francis pleaded for the plight of immigrants while warning those refusing to offer safe shelter and passage that their actions and inhospitable attitudes were bringing about dishonor and self-destruction as their hearts hardened and they "lost their sensitivity to pain."

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - At the border of Mexico and the United States, Pope Francis blessed a large cross in memory of all the people who have crossed the frontier.

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - God will hold humanity responsible for enslaving the poor and treating people as less important than profits, Pope Francis told Mexican workers and business leaders.

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EL PASO, Texas - The supposed political hues of Pope Francis' visit to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, recently raised by a U.S. presidential candidate and media coverage of those remarks came up during a news conference with Catholic officials in El Paso today.

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Pope Francis urged society to rethink its ideas of locking up inmates and throwing away the key, calling such an approach another symptom of the "throwaway culture" he often decries and "a symptom of a culture that has stopped supporting life, of a society that has abandoned its children."

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MORELIA, Mexico - Jesus never sends anyone out as a hitman, dealing in death, but calls Christians to be his disciples and friends, Pope Francis told Mexico's youth.

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MORELIA, Mexico - Pope Francis' visit to Morelia will be a call for those suffering to continue along the path of good and an encouragement for those in religious life to live their vocations with mercy, tenderness and love, said a cloistered Mexican nun.

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SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - Pope Francis warned against moves to diminish the importance of the family, peppering his talk with anecdotes and off-the-cuff remarks that kept a packed soccer stadium cheering, laughing and applauding.

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MEXICO CITY - Shortly after arriving in Mexico City Feb. 12, President Enrique Pena Nieto introduced Pope Francis to most of his Cabinet and senior staff. The next morning, he introduced the pope again to his team at the National Palace in central Mexico City, where presidents and leaders have projected power to the country since colonial times.

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