Pope calls on adults to ‘protect children’

GUANAJUATO, Mexico – Pope Benedict XVI called Saturday on adults to “protect and to care for children” and sent a message to minors suffering from violence in a speech in the central Mexican city of Guanajuato.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, left, looks on as Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by children at the airport in Silao, Mexico, Friday (March 23, 2012). Benedict's weeklong trip to Mexico and Cuba is his first to both countries. AP PHOTO/GREGORIO BORGIA

Amid complaints from sexual abuse victims that the pope would not meet them in Mexico, Benedict referred to the mistreatment of children, without specifically mentioning Catholic priest pedophilia scandals of recent decades.

“I wish to lift up my voice, inviting everyone to protect and to care for children, so that nothing may extinguish their smile, but that they may live in peace and look to the future with confidence,” the pope said before hundreds of cheering children from the balcony of the ornate Casa Del Conde Rul, where he earlier met with President Felipe Calderon.

In his first public event on his second day in Mexico, the pope made a special mention of Mexican children “who have to bear the burden of suffering, abandonment, violence or hunger.”

Thousands of children have been orphaned by Mexico’s drug violence, which has left some 50,000 dead since the government started a military crackdown on organized crime in late 2006.

In a country where violence is an open wound for many families, the pope also warned young people against revenge.

“The disciple of Jesus does not respond to evil with evil,” he said.

The pope has faced criticism during the visit over the Vatican’s management of Mexico’s most notorious pedophile abuse offender, Marcial Maciel, the founder of the influential Legion of Christ order, who died in 2008.

Mexican victims of sexual abuse on Saturday accused the Vatican of protecting Maciel for decades and expressed frustration that Pope Benedict XVI would not meet them here.

In only his second trip to the world’s most Catholic continent, the pope, who turns 85 next month, is visiting Silao, Leon and Guanajuato in Mexico until Monday, before travelling to communist Cuba.