Pope pleads for poor at crucifixion re-enactment

David Agren | Special for USA TODAY

RIO DE JANEIRO — Pope Francis issued an impassioned plea for the downtrodden and oppressed, while addressing throngs of young Catholics on the Copacabana Beach for a re-enactment of Christ going to his crucifixion.

"On the cross," Francis said to a crowd estimated at more than a million people, "Jesus unites himself to the silence of the victims of violence," along with those suffering drug addiction, discrimination and religious persecution, and "every person who suffers from hunger in a world where tons of food are thrown out each day."

The re-enactment is a tradition of World Youth Day, which convenes young Catholics every two years for an encounter with the pope. It has brought more than 300,000 self-styled "pilgrims" to Rio this year.

The event marks Francis' first foreign trip since his March election and has featured strong statements on issues he considers important to his pontificate, such as solidarity with the poor and even a condemnation of drug dealers as "merchants of death" and a rebuke of proposals to liberalize drug laws.

Participants in World Youth Day seemed awed by the experience of seeing the father in the flesh – even if it meant braving stormy skies and unseasonably cold conditions in Rio.

"He's so simple," said Nicole Winsnes, 17, a participant from Mexico. "He's an excellent example for young people."

"He portrays this image that's different from (his predecessor) Pope Benedict XVI," says Kealan Barrett, 21, a medical student from Northern Ireland.The image, he said, "Is warm, welcoming, easier to understand, easier to follow."

A deluge of rain all week forced organizer to change plans for a final Mass, which was to take place on a makeshift site set on a recovered mangrove that had been reduced to a muddy mess. The Mass will instead be celebrated at Copacabana beach.

Francis met earlier Friday with a group of young convicts and prayed with them. "No more violence, only love, Candelaria never again," Catholic News Service reported the pope praying, referring to a notorious massacre of street kids by police outside the Candelaria Church in Rio 20 years earlier.

He celebrated the Angelus prayer with thousands gathered outside the local archbishop's residence and called on young people to seek the wisdom of their grandparents.

"This relationship and this dialogue between generations is a treasure to be preserved and strengthened," he said.

He also heard confessions from five of the hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics who had convened on Copacabana Beach the night before for an event welcoming the pope to World Youth Day.

"Possessions, money and monetary power can give a momentary thrill, the illusion of being happy, but they end up possessing us and making us always want to have more," Francis told the crowd.

He called faith "revolutionary" and added that his followers' persistence and presence in the wet and windy weather was proof that "faith is stronger than rain and cold."

Once again, Francis drew praise from the young attendees, who call themselves pilgrims, and whose presence created traffic in Copacabana and adjacent neighborhoods.

"He's class," quipped Chloe Love, 18, a pilgrim from Ireland.

"He's humble and doesn't go on and on," added her friend Sarah Cadden, speaking of the pope and his plain-speaking style.