The bronze statue of Pope Francis in Juárez isn’t just a monument. It’s a sermon, cast in metal, its homily delivered not with words but with posture—arms outstretched, a dove taking flight. The base is solid marble, but the hands are light, offering peace. I stood before it on a bright desert afternoon, and like all pilgrimages, the journey to this place stirred something both weighty and strange in me. I was not alone. The plaza was empty, yes, but I could feel the presence of others—those who had built it, those who had prayed there, and the memory of Francis himself, who stood on that very ground in 2016 to confront the border.
This trip, I made a quiet vow to visit places of spiritual significance. Four, to be exact. But none struck me quite like El Punto, the site where Pope Francis said Mass just feet from the U.S. border wall, looking not toward Rome but across to El Paso. His visit was not a showy procession but something older, more ancient: a prophet walking into the city gates, preaching not of conquest but of compassion.
Francis came to Juárez as a Latin American Pope—el Papa del sur. Unlike his predecessors, he did not speak of Latin America; he spoke from it. His papacy has been shaped by the soil of Buenos Aires, by slums and mothers and migrants. He came not to lecture Juárez but to grieve with it. And that grief had teeth: 2010 alone saw over 3,000 murders in this city, many drug-related. Violence was not a news story here—it was air, it was atmosphere.
Yet Francis didn’t avoid it. He faced it. In his homily, he spoke of the "human tragedy" of forced migration and systemic violence, connecting the dots between corruption, poverty, and the drug trade. He laid flowers at a cross by the Rio Grande, a shrine for migrants who never made it. No armed guards. No armor. Just prayers, and a plea for dignity.
But what moved me even more was what came after. The statue that now marks his visit wasn’t funded by the Vatican. It was built by the people of Juárez. They collected scrap metal, even keys, to make the bronze. A funeral home donated the granite base. Children, mothers, the elderly—each offered something. The statue is quite literally a community offering. And what is that if not sacred?
Catholicism in Mexico is layered, complicated. These are the same priests who once came in ships beside conquistadors, crucifix in one hand, sword in the other. Colonial violence cannot be erased by charity. And yet, in the shadow of that history, a new narrative has emerged. For decades now, the Church in Juárez has not merely administered sacraments—it has buried the dead, sheltered the hunted, and stood between cartels and children. Parish priests have died for refusing to be silent. Nuns have organized addiction support and counseling in alleyways the government won't enter. There are crosses here not only for Christ, but for those who bore Him into war zones.
I cannot pretend to understand it all. I stood as an outsider, a pilgrim, unsure of my footing, my language, my place. But maybe that’s the point of pilgrimage. Not to arrive certain, but to arrive changed.
Pope Francis stood at the wall and did not ask it to fall. He asked that it not divide our humanity. A subtle but radical prayer.
And in that statue—one hand lifting peace, the other inviting us in—his prayer still lingers.