Rio de Janeiro:
Pope Francis on Saturday said leaders must address the issues raised in protests in Brazil, and in a message to priests worldwide urged them to leave their comfortable surroundings to serve the poor and needy.
In a talk to Brazil's cultural and business leaders in Rio's municipal theater, Francis, in his first direct mention of the protests, said constructive dialogue was "essential for facing
the present moment."
Latin America's largest nation has been rocked by protests against corruption, the misuse of public money and the high cost of living. Most of the protesters are young.
"Between selfish indifference and violent protest there is always another possible option: that of dialogue. Dialogue between generations, dialogue with the people, the capacity to give and receive, while remaining open to the truth," he said.
He urged leaders not to remain deaf to "the outcry, the call for justice (that) continues to be heard even today" and, in an apparent reference to corruption, spoke of "the task of rehabilitating politics."
Francis met on stage with some of Brazil's indigenous people and donned a feathered headdress.
The pope began his penultimate day in Brazil by prodding priests to get out of their comfort zones and go out to the streets and slums.
"We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel," he said in the sermon of a Mass in Rio's cathedral.
Since his election in March as the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, Francis has been prodding priests, nuns and bishops to think less about their careers in the Church and listen more to the cries of those hungry to fill both material and spiritual needs.
"It is not enough simply to open the door in welcome, but we must go out through that door and meet the people!" he said.
'SLUM CARDINAL'Known as the "slum cardinal" in his native Argentina because of his austere lifestyle and visits to poor areas, Francis made a clarion call to clergy to take risks and go out among the faithful who need them most.
"It is in the 'favelas' and 'villas miseria' that one must go to seek and to serve Christ," he said, quoting the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta and using the terms used in Brazil and Argentina for shantytowns.
Francis has set a new tone in the Vatican, rejecting the lush papal residence his predecessors used in the Apostolic Palace and living instead in a small suite in a Vatican guest house, and often eating in the common dining room.
In some of his early outings from the Vatican he has chosen to visit those in need. Shortly after his election, he visited a jail for minors and his first trip outside Rome was to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa to pay tribute to immigrants who have died trying to get to Italy.
Millions of people have turned out to see the Argentine pope since his arrival on Monday for events surrounding World Youth Day, an international jamboree of Catholic youth.
The first Latin American pope is clearly relishing the enthusiasm at a time when the Church, which once was an unrivalled religious bastion on the continent, is grappling to hold onto faithful.
On Friday night at a rally on Rio's famed Copacabana beach, he urged young people to change a world where food is discarded while millions go hungry, where racism and violence still affront human dignity and where politics is more associated with corruption than service.
He ordered his open-sided popemobile to stop numerous times along his 1.8-mile (3-km) route so he could kiss babies and shake hands. He got out several times to walk along the route, making his security detail nervous.
Since his election in March, the pope has taken strong stands in defense of the environment and has several times said that financial speculation and corruption kept millions of people hungry.
During a visit to a Rio slum on Thursday, he urged residents to not lose trust and not let their hopes to be extinguished. Many young people in Brazil saw this as his support for peaceful demonstrations to bring about change.
At the slum, he issued the first social manifesto of his young pontificate, saying that the world's rich must do much more to wipe out vast inequalities between the haves and the have-nots.
World Youth Day ends on Sunday, when Francis presides at a closing Mass before returning to Rome that evening.
© Thomson Reuters 2013