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Copyright © 2016 Albuquerque Journal

CIUDAD JUÃREZ, Mexico – In this once dispirited border city battered by drug violence, the surest sign of hope in the New Year is the impending visit by Pope Francis in February.

Residents, Catholic or not, say the pope’s decision to come to Ciudad Juárez could help turn the page on the city’s dark past.

Bishops on both sides of the border say Pope Francis is expected to deliver a frank message on Mexico’s violent and ongoing battle with organized crime and a plea for compassion for migrants streaming toward the United States from Mexico and Central America. Residents say they are simply hoping for his blessing.

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Sitting outside the city’s Our Lady of Guadalupe cathedral after Mass, Enrique Barrera said he hopes for “a blessing after all the hardship in Juárez.”

The sprawling metropolis that holds 1.3 million, whose outskirts touch the New Mexico border, is awash in pope propaganda and billboards beseeching residents to take pride in their city.

“Feel proud to be from Ciudad Juárez” scream billboards in hot pink and green. On others, an illustration of the pope waving is paired with “Ciudad Juárez is love” and “We’re ready.”

At the height of a turf war between drug trafficking groups, an average of 10 people were being killed daily in Ciudad Juárez. The death toll rose to more than 3,600 in 2010 and the city became one of the most violent in the world.

“His visit is a reason for hope,” said Guadulupe Torres Campos, bishop of the Diocese of Ciudad Juárez. “Our city has suffered a lot. We have moved toward peace, but there are wounds to heal. The pope is coming to console us, to bring us light and spirit.”

The violence in Ciudad Juárez has ebbed but continues in other regions of Mexico.

The pope’s six-day visit to the country – from Feb. 12-18 – will take him to Mexico City and a rough suburb of the capital, Ecatepec; a city in Chiapas state near the Mexico-Guatemala border; and Morelia in Michoacan, a state that has seen brutal fighting between drug cartels in recent years.

Oscar Cantu, bishop of the Diocese of Las Cruces, said he hopes pastors across the border region will make the pope’s visit a “teachable moment.” Church leaders and the faithful should listen to what the pope says about difficult themes, he said.

“What is he saying to the cartels? On immigration? About the value of human life? About the poor?” he said.

Cantu said the pope “wants to go to the border fence” to show solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of migrants from Mexico and Central America who try to reach the United States each year.

Millions expected

Some 2 million visitors are expected in Ciudad Juárez for the pope’s visit, according to local authorities.

The logistics of managing the pope’s visit at the border – where traffic across international bridges is heavy on a regular day – are still taking shape, according to church leaders and U.S. and Mexican customs and immigration authorities.

According to the official schedule, Pope Francis will visit a state penitentiary on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez on the morning of Feb. 17, where he will meet with convicts and their families. He will meet workers from the city’s maquiladora assembly plants. He will hold an outdoor afternoon Mass near the border that is expected to accommodate thousands.

The visit to the jail will take the pope into a poor neighborhood with a patchwork of paved and dirt streets and small homes of concrete block, where many people stay warm with wood-burning stoves. His convoy will take him down the long commercial thoroughfare of Avenida Tecnológico, where people will line up to catch a glimpse. And finally to the Mass near a stretch of the border across from the dry Rio Grande.

Near the cathedral in downtown Ciudad Juárez, the municipal government has set up a kiosk. Inside, a large white book rests on a pedestal.

About half its 1,000 blank pages have been filled with handwritten messages in Spanish and other languages; it’s the second such book placed there by the city and will be a gift to the pontiff. The Argentine pope is the first Latin American to lead the church.

Marcela Saenz Pardo wrote her message on a cold morning before visiting the cathedral.

“I love you,” she wrote, “and I request your prayers for all of us.”