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GUARATINGUETA, Brazil - Pope Benedict has warned Latin America's ruthless drugs cartels they will face God's harsh judgement for wrecking countless lives across the region.
After hearing moving stories of hardship and recovery from former cocaine and heroin addicts on the fourth day of his visit to Brazil, the Pope said drug abuse was a scourge throughout Latin America.
"I therefore urge the drug dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society," he said in a speech to recovering addicts at the Farm of Hope (Fazenda da Esperanca) rehabilitation centre in the rural town of Guaratingueta.
"God will call you to account for your deeds. Human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way," he said.
Thousands of followers sang and waved flags as the Pope, flanked by bodyguards, then walked through the crowd, smiling and shaking hands.
The drugs trade has caused havoc and bloodshed in Latin America, from Colombia, the world's main source of cocaine, to Brazil, where rival trafficking gangs control many slums.
Although the United States was long the key market, Latin American countries suffer from increasing addiction among their own youth, compounding the social woes of poverty and violence. Rival drug cartels in Mexico have killed about 800 people so far this year in brutal turf wars.
About one-in-four of the 6,000 people who heard the Pope's address on a sports field at the farm, nestled in a lush valley about 15km from the shrine city of Aparecida, were from various rehabilitation centres in Brazil.
Patients and former addicts went up on the stage to tell their stories.
Ricardo Correa Ribeirinha, 31, said he was a former street kid whose mother was a prostitute. As a teenager, he sniffed glue, took cocaine and crack and was shot twice, but he now runs a government anti-drugs program and is finishing college.
"Many people thought I'd end up in jail or in a cemetery but I started to walk on the correct path of life that led me to God," he said.
Sylvia Hartwich, a 20-year-old from Berlin, wept as she described how she had tried to commit suicide several times. Now she is a volunteer for a German branch of the program.
"Now I'm a light for other girls. They receive strength from me to become women," she said.
The Pope hugged her as she left the stage.
One recovering addict in the crowd said that though he welcomed the Pope's warning to traffickers, the drug trade was a complicated business.
"He condemned the people working in trafficking but everyone is involved -- institutions, even the police," said Roberto Pereira, aged 33.
Founded by Franciscan friars 25 years ago, the Farm of Hope helps addicts from as far away as Russia and the Philippines kick their habit with a year-long program that includes working as farm hands and reading the bible.
Throughout his trip to the word's most populous Roman Catholic county, the Pope has railed against the hedonism of modern society and exhorted people to lead more moral lives.
He has spoken out against sex outside of marriage, and reiterated the Church's unflinching opposition to abortion.
He is also trying to rebuild the Church's waning influence in Latin America, home to nearly half the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, and stem the tide of people turning to Protestant groups or giving up on religion altogether.
On Sunday, the Pope will address a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops in Aparecida, the site of Brazil's holiest shrine and largest cathedral visited by millions of pilgrims each year.
He also will celebrate an open air mass with hundreds of thousands of people at the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil's national saint.
- REUTERS
