Stephen Andes

The highway that leads from the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza back to the resort-lined coast of the Yucatan Peninsula runs straight through several small towns. And there beside the Virgin of Guadalupe and San Judas Tadeo a gargantuan lawn statue of La Santa Muerte—Mexico’s patroness saint of death—looms over the rest.

For the poet Javier Sicilia, a grieving father whose son was murdered by thugs last year, the pope’s visit is historic as well. Yet for him, and for those wounded voices he seeks to amplify, the pontiff’s arrival has less to do with pushing back secularism than with long-overdue attention to the ravages of Mexico’s drug wars.

Reasons for cautious optimism.