"Let no Mexican dare violate the gift of life," said Pope John Paul II, speaking out against abortion during his Sunday sermon, delivered before 2 million people at a racetrack in Mexico City. The Pope read extracts from a new church document, The Church in America, aimed at winning back ground lost to hundreds of evangelical churches which have swept through the region. "Every Mexican must have the minimum necessary to lead a dignified life," added the Pontiff, "the right to justice and peace."
The Pope's condemnation of "speculative capitalism" and his message of social justice contrast sharply with his crusade against liberation theology, a grass-roots church movement which has participated in the region's struggle for social justice, contributing significantly to the triumph of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in 1979.
The current Pope cracked down on liberation theologians, ordering several Latin American priests to adopt a vow of silence or leave the church. Mexico's Cardinal Norberto Rivera, who served as host to the Pope during this trip, was promoted to the position after he shut down a seminary accused of promoting liberation theology in 1995.
The dismantling of the popular church paved the way for the rise of evangelical churches, many of which fulfilled a similar mission of accompaniment, but from a perspective which defended the status quo. While Mexico is nominally 90 per cent catholic, evangelical churches are estimated to be eating into the majority at a rate of 8,000 new converts a day.
The Pope's words also rang hollow for an estimated quarter-of-a-million people who queued all night in freezing weather conditions only to be turned away by the organisers, Mexico's Legionnaires of Christ, a powerful rightwing sect within the church, who recently presented Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, with a knighthood. More than 1,000 people were treated for hypothermia, while thousands were corralled behind wire fences, a mile from the altar where the Pope delivered his sermon. Meanwhile, 20,000 "special guests" of the Catholic Church, many wearing expensive jewellery and carrying mobile phones, strolled into the stadium an hour before the Mass began.
"They told me that the event was organised by the Legionnaires of Christ," said Ms Albina Santiago, who travelled from Oaxaca state for the visit, "but the way I see it they are more like the millionaires of Christ."
Mexico's progressive daily La Jornada accused the Legionnaires of Christ of violating "all the social sins denounced by the Pope the previous day" and of a "inhumane and degrading treatment" of the more humble members of the crowd.
The overall impression of the visit was vastly positive, a "spirit of renewal" triumphing over the organisational slips, according to most observers.
The Pope presided over his final public rally yesterday in the Aztec Stadium, where he placed his faith in Mexico's youth as the "torch-bearers" of Catholicism, facing multiple challenges at the threshold of the 21st century.