MEXICO CITY (AP) – Pope Francis is back at the Vatican ambassador’s residence where he is staying in Mexico City, after wrapping up a visit to pediatric hospital as his last scheduled event for Sunday.
Onlookers cheered as he passed by in a small, white, hard-top Fiat rather than an open-air popemobile that he used during drives earlier in the day.
Francis got out and greeted well-wishers gathered near the residence, blessing them and grasping their hands. He also urged them: “Don’t forget to pray for me.”
He then entered the residence looking a bit more energetic than he did Saturday evening.
Earlier, the pope told hundreds of thousands of people gathered for a huge outdoor Mass that there can be “no dialogue with the devil.”
Francis’ comments came as he briefly departed from prepared remarks during his homily in Ecatepec, a hardscrabble city of 1.6 million outside the Mexican capital. Ecatepec has been afflicted by murders, kidnappings and extortion by criminal gangs.
Speaking out against the drug trade and associated violence is a central theme of the pope’s five-day visit.
