Pope heads to Bolivia amid church-state tensions

Wrapping up the Ecuador leg of his South American pilgrimage, Pope Francis prepared today to head to Bolivia, where church-state tensions over everything from the environment to the role of the church in society are high on the agenda.
Before leaving Ecuador's capital Quito, Francis was to meet with the elderly and give a pep talk to local clergy.
Then he was set to fly to La Paz and meet with Bolivian President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian known for his anti-imperialist and socialist stands.
The stop in La Paz was being kept to four hours to spare the 78-year-old pope from the taxing 4,000-metre elevation; the rest of his Bolivian stay will be in Santa Cruz.

Francis and Morales have met on several occasions, most recently in October when the president, a former coca farmer, participated in a Vatican summit of grassroots groups of indigenous and advocates for the poor who have been championed by Francis.
Their shared views on caring for society's poorest, and the need for wealthy countries to drastically change course to address climate change have bumped up against Morales' anti-clerical initiatives that have roiled relations with the local church.

As soon as Morales took office in 2006, for example, the Bible and cross were removed from the presidential palace.
A new constitution in 2009 made the overwhelmingly Catholic nation a secular state and Andean religious rituals replaced Catholic rites at official state ceremonies.

"There are some challenging issues in terms of Evo Morales taking on a quite combative role against the church, which he sees as a challenge to his authority," said Clare Dixon, Latin American regional director for CAFOD, the English Catholic aid agency.
"The church is also questioning some decisions made about development in the country."
Morales, who expelled the US ambassador and Drug Enforcement Administration, came to power championing Bolivia's 36 indigenous groups and enshrined their rights in the constitution.
But he has alienated lowlands natives by promoting a highway through a nature reserve and authorizing oil and natural gas exploration in wilderness areas.

Cheered by environmentalists abroad for his demand that wealthy nations do more to combat climate change, Morales has been under fire at home from critics, including activists in the church, who say he puts extracting petroleum ahead of clean water and forests.