Cartels under fire as Pope celebrates huge mass

Pope Benedict drew the largest crowd of his Latin American trip yesterday, celebrating a huge open-air Mass where a local bishop denounced the “fear, helplessness and pain” caused by Mexico’s murderous drug wars.

On his last day in Mexico, the pope said Mass for a joyous crowd that organisers estimated at 300,000 people at a sprawling park on the outskirts of the central city of Leon.

As the Pope toured the streets in a popemobile, he wore a black-and-white sombrero, to the delight of the crowds.

The Archbishop of Leon, Jose Martin Rabago, set the tone by spelling out the suffering of a country where clashes between drug cartels and the state have claimed more than 50,000 lives over the past five years.

“We have been living through events of violence and death that have generated a painful sensation of fear, helplessness and grief,” he said in his welcome address.

The Pope, who leaves for Cuba today, addressed the problem of drug trafficking in comments to reporters while flying to Mexico on Friday.