Pope’s Chile-Peru trip to include focus on indigenous people
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ trip to Chile and Peru in January is likely to focus on the plight of indigenous peoples, with a day dedicated to the Amazon and a visit to a region wracked by tensions with Chile’s Mapuche group.
The Vatican on Monday released the itinerary for the Jan. 15-22 trip, which will be the pope’s 22nd foreign visit and his fifth to his home continent.
The trip also is expected to cover issues important to Francis — poverty, migration and the environment. And it will feature the protocol visits, speeches to bishops and meetings with local Jesuits that are part of any Francis foreign trip.
It also could create tension. Vandals recently burned a bus and scattered pamphlets to protest Francis’ Jan. 17 visit to the southern Chilean region claimed by the Mapuche as ancestral territory.