Francis to visit troubled Mexico in 2016, Vatican confirms

The Mexican bishops' conference and the Vatican have confirmed that Pope Francis will visit Mexico in 2016, marking his first trip to the heavily Catholic country which continues to be mired in corruption and whose people suffer violence at the hands of the State and powerful drug gangs.

Auxiliary Bishop Eugenio Lira Rugarcia of Puebla, the bishops' conference secretary-general, told Catholic News Service that the Pope would travel to Mexico next year, though dates and details were still to be determined.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, provided similar information to the Televisa network, adding the trip would likely take place during the first half of 2016 and include a stop in the capital, Mexico City.

Pope Francis has previously mused about visiting Mexico, home to the world's second-largest Catholic population. After visiting the Philippines last year, the Pope said he wanted to walk from Mexico into the United States "as a sign of brotherhood and of help to the immigrants", along with visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the world's most-visited Marian shrine.

He said in September that he had planned to enter the US at a border crossing, going from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso, Texas, but decided that the country, with about 100 million Catholics deserved a visit of its own.

Protestors on the anniversary of the kidnapping of 43 student teachers hold a minute's silence outside the Presidential Palace in Mexico City (PA)

Francis will likely use the visit to highlight migration issues and drug trafficking: two subjects that he spoke about on numerous occasions during his visit to the US and Cuba last month. 

A visit in early 2016 would come as the country continues confronting vices like corruption, highlighted last week by the anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students in the Mexican state of Guerrero.

This week, international investigators were barred from talking to Mexican army soldiers they believe may be implicated in their disappearance by Mexico's defence minister, Salvador Cienfuegos.  

President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose agenda has focused more on economic reforms than social and security problems, has travelled twice to the Vatican since Pope Francis' election. In June 2014, his visit followed the bishops' conference issuing an unusually terse statement on his economic agenda.

Politicians from Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party - which was founded by the anti-clerical victors of the Mexican Revolution - previously avoided public encounters with prelates, but have sought well-publicised papal audiences in recent years, reflecting the thaw in church-state relations over the past 25 years.

Mexico continues to be beset by corruption and violence at the hands of a corrupt police force and military and powerful drug gangs (PA)

Pope Benedict XVI made the last papal trip to Mexico in March 2012, visiting Guanajuato state.

His visit drew an estimated 600,000 people for the final Mass - doubling expectations - though his message stayed away from uncomfortable issues such as security. St. John Paul II made five visits to Mexico during his 26 years as Pope.

According to census data, Mexico remains one of Latin America's most Catholic countries, with 83 percent of the population professing the faith.