Tijuana Dropped From Pope’s Final Mexico Itinerary

Vatican officials have scaled down the scope of Pope John Paul II’s scheduled trip to Mexico in May, canceling a number of planned stopovers, including a visit to the border city of Tijuana that many hoped would dramatize the plight of refugees and migrants.

The final itinerary for the May 6-13 visit, said a spokesman for Archbishop Girolamo Prigione, the Vatican’s delegate to Mexico, includes events in 11 cities, including a meeting with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in Mexico City.

Last summer, church authorities released a preliminary itinerary that included a stopover in Tijuana. But that visit was among a number canceled, a church official said, to streamline the Pope’s schedule and allow more time at other locations.

In Tijuana, word of the Pope’s possible visit had prompted expectation that he would speak about the issue of migration, particularly the ongoing flight of Latin American economic and political refugees to the United States.