Pope Lauds Paraguay's 'most Glorious Women of America'

Pope Francis praised Paraguay's women for rebuilding their nation from the ashes of war in the nineteenth century in a mass at the country's most sacred religious site on Saturday. The pontiff said, "I would like especially to mention you, the women, wives and mothers of Paraguay, who at great cost and sacrifice were able to lift up a country defeated, devastated and laid low by war." Caacupe is famous for a shrine housing a statue of the Madonna said to have been carved by a Guarani convert to Christianity in the 16th century, when missionaries set up in the area. Thousands of Argentines crossed the border to see their native son, nearing the end of a "homecoming" tour of South America in which he has urged the downtrodden to change the world economic order, warned of irreversible harm to the planet and walked among prisoners.
Francis visited a children's hospital in the capital Asuncion before moving to Caacupe, about 60 km southeast.