Port Louis, Mauritius • Pope Francis celebrated Mauritius’ ethnic and religious diversity Monday during a daylong trip to the Indian Ocean nation, but he also urged the government to resist pursuing an “idolatrous economic model” that sacrifices people for profit.
Francis spent the final day of his weeklong trip to Africa in the Mauritian capital Port Louis, celebrating Mass before an estimated 100,000 people and meeting with government leaders. The trip fell on the feast day of one of Mauritius’ most important figures, the 19th-century French missionary the Rev. Jacques-Desire Laval, who ministered to freed slaves.