Pope ends Brazil trip with fierce speech
Benedict laments lax morals and urges bishops to do better in building up the church. His last Mass attracts only 150,000.
By Tracy Wilkinson,
Times Staff Writer
May 14, 2007

APARECIDA, BRAZIL — Pope Benedict XVI ended his first pilgrimage to the Americas much as he began it: with a searing attack on diverse forces, from Marxism and capitalism to birth control, that he believes threaten society and the Roman Catholic faith.

And in comment likely to generate controversy in Latin America, the pope said the New World's indigenous population, "silently longing" for Christianity, had welcomed the teachings that "came to make their cultures fruitful, purifying them." Many indigenous rights groups say the conquest ushered in a period of disease, mass murder, enslavement and the shattering of native cultures. the rest