Collection from Mexico Papal Masses to Fund New Migrant Welcoming Centers Elise Harris - Catholic News Agency
go to original January 9, 2016

Central American migrants in Mexico (Peter Haden/Flickr)

Funds raised during the collection in Pope Francis' public Masses in Mexico have a special destination: they will be used to build two new welcoming centers for the country’s large influx of immigrants.

“On the occasion of the Extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy we have decided to open two new welcoming centers for immigrants: one at the border with Mazapa (de Madero) and another in Salto de Agua,” Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel said a Dec. 30 interview with Zenit news agency.

“I told the Pope that the collection we are doing for the visit, in agreement with the Episcopal Conference, will be destined for the construction of these two new structures. It is what we will symbolically deliver in the collection of the Mass.”

Bishop Esquivel heads the Mexican diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, near Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, where Pope Francis will visit on his third full day in Mexico.

The Pope is scheduled to make a Feb. 12-17 visit to the country, during which he will also travel to the crime-ridden city of Morelia and the U.S.-Mexico border town Ciudad Juarez. He will also pay a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which he has stated is the primary reason for going to Mexico.

...Francis will hold a public Mass every day of the trip, apart from the day he arrives, adding up to five in total. Collection funds from all of them will go toward the two new welcoming centers for immigrants.

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