Pope Blesses U.S.-Mexico Border

Earlier today, Pope Francis traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to offer a blessing. In CNN’s footage below, you can see the pope ascending a ramp to overlook the Rio Grande. The crosses before him represent migrants who died in their efforts to reach the United States.

After this benediction, Pope Benedict said mass in Ciudad Juarez. The L.A. Times reports that the pope:

decried the global “human tragedy” that forces people to migrate unwillingly, risking death — “each step, a journey laden with grave injustices: the enslaved, the imprisoned and extorted.”

Reserving special mention for women “unjustly robbed of their lives,” Francis said migrants “are the brothers and sisters of those expelled by poverty and violence, by drug trafficking and criminal organizations.”

-KitJ