CAACUPE, Paraguay (Reuters) – Pope Francis praised Paraguay’s women for rebuilding their nation from the ashes of war in the nineteenth century in a mass at the country’s most sacred religious site yesterday.
Thousands of Argentines crossed the border to see their native son, nearing the end of a “homecoming” tour of South America in which he has urged the downtrodden to change the world economic order, warned of irreversible harm to the planet and walked among prisoners.
Francis visited a children’s hospital in the capital Asuncion before moving to Caacupe, about 60 km southeast.
“I would like especially to mention you, the women, wives and mothers of Paraguay, who at great cost and sacrifice were able to lift up a country defeated, devastated and laid low by war,” the pontiff said. “God bless the women of Paraguay, the most glorious women of America.”
More than half of Paraguayan men were killed in the Paraguayan War of 1864-1870, one of the bloodiest in Latin American history, which Paraguay fought against an alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
