POPE-LATAM/BOLIVIA Pope arrives in Bolivia, shows no signs of suffering from altitude sickness

Record ID: 147798

  • Title: POPE-LATAM/BOLIVIA Pope arrives in Bolivia, shows no signs of suffering from altitude sickness
  • Date: 9th July 2015
  • Summary: AUDIENCE IN CATHEDRAL
  • Embargoed: 24th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1PACZ88LBXJQ4A6R4QVWVQON3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A fighter interception T-33 jet escorted the papal plane on Wednesday (July 8) as the pontiff arrived in Bolivia on the second leg of his three-country visit to Latin America.
    Pope Francis was met at the airport in El Alto by Bolivian President Evo Morales and praised Bolivia's social reforms to spread wealth and urged the world not to view prosperity as material wealth, which he warned only breeds corruption and conflict.
    Morales' strained relations with the Catholic Church have begun thawing under the Argentine-born pontiff's papacy, and he warmly embraced the pope seven years after denouncing the Church as "an instrument of domination".
    Francis, Latin America's first pope, made back-to-back addresses in the thin air of La Paz, which sits in a bowl surrounded by mountain peaks, and showed no sign of suffering from altitude sickness.
    First he met with Morales in the Presidential Palace and then walked next door for a brief reception in the cathedral. Thousands of people lined the roads and filled the square outside the cathedral to welcome the pope.
    Aboard his flight from Ecuador, where he began his "homecoming" tour, the pope drank a tea made of a mix of coca leaves, chamomile and anise seeds to ward off illness, a flight attendant said.
    Pope Francis will travel to Paraguay on Friday (July 10).
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