Pope courts indigenous Mexicans as Catholic fervour fades

By Philip Pullella and Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (Reuters) - Pope Francis embraced the people of Mexico's poor indigenous south on Monday, denouncing their "systemic" exclusion from society and encouraging the use of native languages in Catholic worship in a bid to stem a tide of Protestant conversions. Preaching to a packed crowd at a sports ground in the southern state of Chiapas, the pope quoted the Popol Vuh, a sacred Maya text, and drew comparisons between Catholic and indigenous values. "You have much to teach us," he said, lauding Mexico's native peoples while denouncing "the systemic and organised way your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society." He said the Mass before a Hollywood-style stage set replica of the facade of the colonial-era city's main cathedral.