Pope brings message of hope to gritty Mexico City suburb

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Latest on Pope Francis' visit to Mexico (all times local): 12:00 p.m. Javier Rivera is a 29-year-old art teacher who figured he could make a few extra bucks selling Pope Francis T-shirts ahead of the pontiff's Mass in the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec. But so far business has been anything but brisk. Of the 200 garments he printed up, he's only managed to sell 80. Rivera started out selling them for 100 pesos (about $5.30), but is now discounting them at 30 pesos ($1.60). The problem is competition from a horde of other people hawking everything from Francis keychains and rosaries to coffee mugs and calendars. Rivera says Ecatepec residents are very resourceful and accustomed to doing whatever is necessary to get by. He laments that "it seems everyone had the same idea as me." ___ 11:00 a.m. A thick haze is hanging over the Valley of Mexico, which is home to the Mexican capital and the suburb of Ecatepec where Pope Francis is set to hold a huge outdoor Mass. There's a notable smell of smoke in the air and skyscrapers in a central business district were obscured by the haze. The Mexico City government says via Twitter that there was a grassland fire in San Salvador Atenco about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the site of the papal Mass. The government is reporting an overall air quality of "bad" and recommends that people suffering from asthma or other respiratory problems restrict their outdoor activities. That's not unusual for the famously smoggy capital and falls short of its "very bad" and "extremely bad" ratings. ___ 10:30 a.m. Pope Francis has arrived at the sprawling, gritty suburb of Ecatapec where he's due to say Mass for more than 300,000 people on a vast field at the edge of the Mexico City metropolis. During the motorcade through Mexico City to catch his helicopter, the pontiff stopped his popemobile briefly to greet and hug a group of nuns. ___ 9:50 a.m. Pope Francis is starting his second full day in Mexico with a healthy dose of the country's hospitality. There are songs, cheers and chants as he starts his journey to the gritty suburb of Ecatepec, where he'll preside over the largest Mass of his visit. Some of the chants echo those that greeted his predecessor John Paul II, who was especially beloved in Mexico. Among them are calls of "Francis, brother, now you are Mexican," a phrase that rhymes in Spanish. The pope walked out of the nuncio's residence to bless and kiss people waiting there: families with children, people in wheelchairs. He's beaming and animated as he heads out on his motorcade in an open popemobile — seemingly revived after appearing worn out during Mass Saturday afternoon at the Basilica of Guadalupe. And shortly after leaving, he's stopped to plunge into the excited crowd along the street. ___ 8:10 a.m. Mexicans bundled against the cold are arriving at a huge field in a crime-ridden suburb of Mexico City for what is expected to be the biggest Mass of Pope Francis' five-day trip. After spending his first full day in the grandeur of Mexico City's historic center, Francis is heading to the capital's periphery for a Mass on Sunday in Ecatepec, a sprawling suburb of 1.6 million where drug cartels hold sway and the murder rate, especially for women, is particularly high. Pilgrims sporting white baseball caps wrapped themselves in blankets to guard against temperatures that dipped in to the 30s Fahrenheit (about 3 celsius) as they trudged along the roads leading to the Mass site, a sprawling field that has a capacity of 400,000 people. Francis is expected to offer a message of hope and encouragement for a part of Mexico where extortion and disappearances are a near-daily part of life.

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