Temuco, Chile, Jan 10, 2018 / 15:03 pm
Pope Francis will spend a day in Temuco, the capital of a Chilean region with a large indigenous population, during his Jan. 15-18 visit to the nation. The city's bishop has said the Pope decided to come to the area because it represents Chile's peripheries.
"If we look at where the Pope likes to go when on a visit, it is precisely the borders, the existential borders, where there is pain, where there is suffering, where there are wounds, where there is poverty, Bishop Hector Vargas Bastidas of Temuco told ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language sister news agency.
Temuco is the capital of Araucania, a region in south-central Chile where one-third of the population is ethnic Mapuche, who are by far the country's largest indigenous group.
Bishop Vargas offered the indigenous population, their conflict with the Chilean state, and the region's poverty as three reasons Pope Francis has chosen to visit Temuco.