Pope urges 300,000 Mexicans to ‘shun the devil’s drug money’

Pope Francis has told Mexicans to “shun the devil” in a homily against those who traffick drugs. The Pontiff told 300,000 people on a field at the edge of Mexico City to make the country into a land of opportunity, not a place where young people are “destroyed at the hands of the dealers of death”. It came as an official in the Mexican state of Sinaloa said the bodies of 13 people were found in a rural area - the latest in a series of violent multiple killings.

Only the power of the word of God can defeat him. Let us get it into our heads: With the devil, there is no dialogue.

Pope Francis

Francis chose to give his homily - the Catholic equivalent to a sermon - in Ecatepec, a poverty-stricken suburb of 1.6 million people where drug violence, kidnappings and gangland-style killings are rife. In a clear reference to the drug lords who dominate the city’s streets, the Pope focused on the danger posed by the devil. He urged Mexicans to make their country into a land of opportunity “where there will be no need to emigrate in order to dream, no need to be exploited in order to work, no need to make the despair and poverty of many the opportunism of a few, a land that will not have to mourn men and women, young people and children who are destroyed at the hands of the dealers of death”.

His message will reach those who need it so that people know we, the good people, outnumber the bad.

Ignacia Godinez, a 56-year-old housewife

Mexico Pope