2/14/2016 New York Times

Reuters/Tony Gentile

ECATEPEC, Mexico — Pope Francis stepped into the heartland of Mexican inequality on Sunday, presiding over an enormous outdoor Mass in the impoverished outskirts of the capital and urging the joyous crowd not to fall prey to the wealth, vanity and pride that can create “a society of the few, and for the few.”

By coming to Ecatepec, one of the country’s largest, poorest and most violent cities, the Latin American pope placed himself at the center ofMexico’s identity crisis. Nagging economic disparity has left nearly half of the country living in poverty while a mere sliver of society controls the rest — even as drug traffickers terrorize large parts of the nation.

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