ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) – Pope Francis will put into practice his insistence that the world’s poor not be left on the margins of society by visiting a slum outside Asuncion on the final day of his three-country South American tour.
Francis has spent much of the past week – and before that much of his pontificate – railing about the injustices of the global capitalist system that he says idolizes money over people, demanding instead a new economic model where the Earth’s resources are distributed equally among all.
In Banado Norte on Sunday, Francis will see people living in shacks made of plywood and corrugated metal, and quite possibly pigs rummaging through garbage searching for leftovers. Authorities estimate that about 15,000 families there live in extreme poverty, periodically exacerbated when heavy rains burst the banks of the nearby Paraguay River, turning dirt roads to impassable pools of mud.
For weeks, residents in the area and authorities have been preparing for the visit, doing everything from draining some of the roads to making rosaries to give the pope as gifts.
But Francis is expected to offer them his solidarity and encouragement, after having urged their leaders to do more to take their plight into account in making decisions about development and social welfare.