The interior of the Santo Domíngo de Guzmán church in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico. Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Pope Francis will celebrate a mass at an Indian church and will issue an edict supporting the use of indigenous languages during his trip to Mexico next week.

Pope Francis will travel to San Cristobal de Las Casas, a town located in Chiapas, a Mexican state known for its indigenous culture and activism, on Monday, February 15, according to the Vatican schedule. The mass will include readings in three indigenous languages, the Associated Press reported.

During the visit, Pope Francis will support the use of indigenous languages in ceremonies, the AP said. Prior leaders of the Catholic Church have discouraged the inclusion of tribal cultural elements in religious rituals.

"Still today, and not just in Chiapas but in other parts of Mexico and Latin America, some people don’t take into account their (indigenous) languages, their customs, their rites, they despise all that as if it were something backward, when in fact they have a great wisdom," Felipe Arizmendi, the bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, told the AP.

Pope Francis will wrap up the trip on February 17 with a mass in Juarez, near the U.S.-Mexico border. As part of the Two Nations One Faith cross-border event, a dance group from the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, also known as the Tigua Tribe, will perform.

Pope Francis, who is from Argentina, made his first visit to the United States last September and included members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe from California during a mass in Washington, D.C. He did not directly address the Catholic Church's mistreatment of Native Americans.

Get the Story:
Pope Francis visit to celebrate Mexico’s indigenous church (AP 2/7)
Pope to OK use of indigenous languages for Mass in Mexico (AP 2/5)

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