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Pope's Chile-Peru Trip to Include Focus on Indigenous People

by Associated Press

   VATICAN CITY --

   Pope Francis' weeklong visit to Chile and Peru in January is expected
   to include a focus on issues affecting indigenous people.
   The Vatican on Monday released the itinerary for the Jan. 15-22 trip,
   which will be the pope's 21st foreign visit and his fifth to his home
   continent.
   The schedule includes a day devoted to the Amazon as well as a visit to
   a southern Chilean region claimed by the indigenous Mapuche community.
   The trip also is likely to cover other issues important to Francis --
   poverty, migration and the environment. And it will feature protocol
   visits, speeches to bishops and meetings with local Jesuits.
   It also could create tension. Vandals burned a bus and scattered
   pamphlets last week to protest Francis' Jan. 17 visit to the region
   claimed by the Mapuche as ancestral territory.