POPE John Paul arrived in El Salvador yesterday with a message of reconciliation for a nation struggling for peace after war. Although the guns that killed some 75,000 people - mostly Catholic peasants fell silent after a 1992 accord, discontent still lingers through El Salvador and its church.
Looming over the Pope's day long visit was the shadow of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the best-known victim of the civil war. On his way from the airport to Mass, the Pope was greeted by a giant mural of Archbishop Romero, murdered by a right-wing death squad in 1980.
When the Pope continues to Venezuela today, prisoners and a new church await his blessing as he wraps up his week-long Latin American tour. The focal point of the-two-day visit will be the Pope's arrival tomorrow in Venezuela's spiritual capital Guanare, 430 km south-west of the capital Caracas, to bless the church. Just an hour after his arrival in the country, the Pope will bless inmates at the notoriously violent Catia jail outside Caracas.
The Pope returns to Rome on Sunday.