Tax dodgers disclose Swiss accounts
Almost 30 000 Britons and Austrians have come forward to pay tax on previously undisclosed Swiss bank accounts under bilateral agreements aimed at rooting out untaxed money in Switzerland.
Switzerland's Federal Tax Administration (FTA) said on Thursday it had transferred a first tranche of £258.3m ($396.7m) to Britain based on 14 789 declarations, and €416.7 ($551.6m) to Austria based on 13 592 clients.
Swiss secrecy laws have helped to make the country the world's biggest offshore financial centre, but have also drawn the ire of countries seeking to fight tax evasion.
Under the deals with Britain and Austria, clients with undisclosed Swiss bank accounts have the option either to provide information to the relevant tax authorities and pay any monies due, or make a punitive one-off payment in exchange for retaining their anonymity.
Thereafter taxes will be levied on the capital gains and income generated by the accounts, to be passed on to the relevant governments.
However, after Germany rejected a similar arrangement in December, Swiss banks have become less enthusiastic about a model they see as cumbersome, and which puts the onus of tax collection onto them.
With Swiss attitudes on automatic exchanges of information softening, more clients than expected are also choosing to pass account details direct to their tax authorities, rather than making the punitive payment to remain anonymous.
"Only a comparatively small group of individuals opted for the regularisation of assets by means of the one-off payment," said the Swiss Bankers Association, confirming its analysis from earlier in July.
Under a deal signed on January 1, Swiss banks paid 500m francs to Britain, which they will only receive back in full if their UK-resident clients pay at least 1.3bn francs through the anonymity scheme, rather than direct to Britain.
Britain's Office for Budget Responsibility has said it could rake in £3.2bn this year from individual payments and the anonymity scheme combined, but has raised doubts about the timing of payments after the latter scheme took in less than expected in the first part of the year.
According to an estimate by Imke Gerdes from global law firm Baker & McKenzie, Austria is expected to raise €1bn in tax revenue in 2013 from its agreement with Switzerland.
Switzerland's State Secretariat for International Financial Matters said implementation of the agreements had not thrown up any major obstacles, adding that negotiations on similar deals are currently underway with Greece and Italy.
Manning is whistleblower, not traitor
The US soldier accused of the biggest leak of classified information in the nation's history "is a whistleblower" and not a traitor as the government claims, Bradley Manning's defence lawyer said at his court-martial on Friday.
Army Private First Class Manning spilled secrets to the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website because he wanted to provoke a broader debate on U.S. military and diplomatic policy out of concern for fellow Americans, the defense argued.
"That is a whistleblower, period. That is somebody who wants to inform the American public," defence lawyer David Coombs told Army Colonel Denise Lind, who is presiding over the trial.
Prosecutors, in five hours of closing arguments on Thursday, called the 25-year-old intelligence analyst a traitor, not a whistleblower, for releasing more than 700 000 documents through WikiLeaks. They said the short, bespectacled Manning had betrayed the trust his nation put in him when he released documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The defence said he had been mischaracterised and recalled one of Manning's online chats in which he said, "I feel a great responsibility and duty to people, it's strange, I know. I place value on people first."
"It's an inconvenient truth for the government" that Manning cared about people, Coombs told the judge.
Manning is accused of 21 criminal counts, the most serious of which, aiding the enemy, carries a life sentence.
The case has pitted civil liberties groups, which seek increased transparency into the actions of the US military and security apparatus, against the government, which has argued that the low-level analyst, who was stationed in Baghdad at the time, endangered lives.
The WikiLeaks website, which in Manning's case published classified files, combat videos and diplomatic cables, has become controversial both for exposing secret data and for its founder, Julian Assange, who has been staying in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for more than a year to avoid extradition to Sweden for alleged sex crimes.
Manning was arrested in May 2010 while serving in Iraq.
He chose a trial by a military judge, rather than a panel of military jurors.
In February, Manning pleaded guilty to lesser charges, including misusing classified information, such as military databases in Iraq and Afghanistan and files pertaining to Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The court-martial has recently been overshadowed to some extent by the case of fugitive US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed to Britain's Guardian newspaper early last month the details of alleged secret US surveillance programs tracking Americans' telephone and internet use.
Remaining Snowden docs 'unlikely to stop US'
It's the stuff of spy novels: The hunted-down
protagonist wins in the end because he's got damaging documents squirreled
away, a bargaining chip against the bureaucrats who want to silence him.
If National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden thinks he's living in such a thriller, legal experts say he's got another thing coming. Nothing he has is likely to scare off American prosecutors.
Snowden, stuck at a Russian airport while he seeks asylum from several countries, has not overtly threatened the US that he would release more damaging documents. But the journalist through whom he has been working, Glenn Greenwald, has said that blueprints that detail how the NSA operates will be made public if something should happen to Snowden.
"This is his insurance policy," said Greenwald, a columnist with Britain's Guardian newspaper who received Snowden's initial leaks and who communicates with the former NSA systems analyst. In a 13 July article in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion, Greenwald said, "The US government should be on its knees praying every day that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something does happen, all the information would be revealed and this would be its worst nightmare."
Snowden leaked details of two top secret US surveillance programmes. He has been charged with three offenses, including espionage, and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that if Snowden releases any more of the materials, Russia will not grant him temporary asylum.
"If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response," Snowden said in a 17 June online question-and-answer forum.
No word on prosecution strategy
"Snowden has information enough to cause more damage to the US government in a single minute than any other person has ever had in the history of the United States," Greenwald said in the article in La Nacion.
The US Justice Department is not discussing its prosecution strategy. But while the US isn't eager for any more classified information to be disclosed, there's little chance Snowden will be able to use what he has as a bargaining chip to negotiate his prosecution or extradition. That's because giving into threats would risk opening the door for others to take similar action in the future.
The government must take the position: "We don't negotiate with extortionists," said Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Justice Department's criminal division and former secretary of homeland security. Chertoff said he can't recall a case in which the US government has caved under this type of threat.
"I'm betting that there is virtually nothing that Snowden could do or threaten to persuade the [US government] not to prosecute," said Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor who was on the team that prosecuted I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Bush administration official who revealed the name of a CIA officer. Zeidenberg said doing so would send a damaging message from the US: "If you are going to steal secrets, get the crown jewels; that way, the government will never dare to prosecute."
Mark Zaid, an attorney who has represented people charged with espionage, said these threats from Snowden and Greenwald are a form of graymail, a tactic in which defendants charged with spying try to force the government to drop the charges by threatening to expose US secrets on the witness stand.
Zaid said every time Snowden releases more documents it could create additional criminal charges. Zaid is not working on Snowden's defence and hasn't been contacted by the leaker. But if he were representing Snowden, Zaid said, "I'd tell him to shut up" and accept a marriage proposal from Russian spy Anna Chapman. On 3 July, the attractive redhead who was swept up with nine other sleeper agents and deported from the US in 2010 tweeted, "Snowden, will you marry me?"
Common defence tactic
"The only thing really he's got now is either minimise the penalties going forward or work out some favourable resolution he's comfortable with somewhere in the world," Zaid said of Snowden.
And even then, it would be difficult for the US government to negotiate, he said.
"Because it's not just about Snowden anymore," Zaid said. "It's about anyone who would follow in his footsteps."
Graymail is a common defence tactic, and three decades ago a law was passed to combat it. Attorneys say the law was meant to let judges sort out the classified information behind closed doors and determine what the defence genuinely needs to make public. If the judge concludes the defendant cannot get a fair trial without spilling secrets, the government can decide whether to go forward or drop the case.
But Snowden has yet to enter into court proceedings. The government is in the process of trying to extradite him to face the charges.
US officials have said what Snowden already released will harm national security, though it's too early to tell what damage has been done. The US intelligence community has a good idea of what other documents he has.
'Extortion'
"I wouldn't describe it as graymail," Chertoff said. "I would describe it as blackmail."
As Chertoff sees it, Snowden's message to the government is this: "If you do anything that Snowden doesn't like he's going to try to hurt you by putting out information that could be damaging."
"To me, that's extortion," Chertoff said.
When Snowden arrived at Moscow's international airport on 23 June he was believed to be planning simply to transfer to a flight to Cuba and then to Venezuela to seek asylum. But the US cancelled his passport, stranding him. He hasn't been seen in public since, although he met with human rights activists and lawyers on 12 June. He's applied for temporary asylum in Russia and has said he'd like to visit the countries that offered him permanent asylum Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.
If National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden thinks he's living in such a thriller, legal experts say he's got another thing coming. Nothing he has is likely to scare off American prosecutors.
Snowden, stuck at a Russian airport while he seeks asylum from several countries, has not overtly threatened the US that he would release more damaging documents. But the journalist through whom he has been working, Glenn Greenwald, has said that blueprints that detail how the NSA operates will be made public if something should happen to Snowden.
"This is his insurance policy," said Greenwald, a columnist with Britain's Guardian newspaper who received Snowden's initial leaks and who communicates with the former NSA systems analyst. In a 13 July article in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion, Greenwald said, "The US government should be on its knees praying every day that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something does happen, all the information would be revealed and this would be its worst nightmare."
Snowden leaked details of two top secret US surveillance programmes. He has been charged with three offenses, including espionage, and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that if Snowden releases any more of the materials, Russia will not grant him temporary asylum.
"If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response," Snowden said in a 17 June online question-and-answer forum.
No word on prosecution strategy
"Snowden has information enough to cause more damage to the US government in a single minute than any other person has ever had in the history of the United States," Greenwald said in the article in La Nacion.
The US Justice Department is not discussing its prosecution strategy. But while the US isn't eager for any more classified information to be disclosed, there's little chance Snowden will be able to use what he has as a bargaining chip to negotiate his prosecution or extradition. That's because giving into threats would risk opening the door for others to take similar action in the future.
The government must take the position: "We don't negotiate with extortionists," said Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Justice Department's criminal division and former secretary of homeland security. Chertoff said he can't recall a case in which the US government has caved under this type of threat.
"I'm betting that there is virtually nothing that Snowden could do or threaten to persuade the [US government] not to prosecute," said Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor who was on the team that prosecuted I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Bush administration official who revealed the name of a CIA officer. Zeidenberg said doing so would send a damaging message from the US: "If you are going to steal secrets, get the crown jewels; that way, the government will never dare to prosecute."
Mark Zaid, an attorney who has represented people charged with espionage, said these threats from Snowden and Greenwald are a form of graymail, a tactic in which defendants charged with spying try to force the government to drop the charges by threatening to expose US secrets on the witness stand.
Zaid said every time Snowden releases more documents it could create additional criminal charges. Zaid is not working on Snowden's defence and hasn't been contacted by the leaker. But if he were representing Snowden, Zaid said, "I'd tell him to shut up" and accept a marriage proposal from Russian spy Anna Chapman. On 3 July, the attractive redhead who was swept up with nine other sleeper agents and deported from the US in 2010 tweeted, "Snowden, will you marry me?"
Common defence tactic
"The only thing really he's got now is either minimise the penalties going forward or work out some favourable resolution he's comfortable with somewhere in the world," Zaid said of Snowden.
And even then, it would be difficult for the US government to negotiate, he said.
"Because it's not just about Snowden anymore," Zaid said. "It's about anyone who would follow in his footsteps."
Graymail is a common defence tactic, and three decades ago a law was passed to combat it. Attorneys say the law was meant to let judges sort out the classified information behind closed doors and determine what the defence genuinely needs to make public. If the judge concludes the defendant cannot get a fair trial without spilling secrets, the government can decide whether to go forward or drop the case.
But Snowden has yet to enter into court proceedings. The government is in the process of trying to extradite him to face the charges.
US officials have said what Snowden already released will harm national security, though it's too early to tell what damage has been done. The US intelligence community has a good idea of what other documents he has.
'Extortion'
"I wouldn't describe it as graymail," Chertoff said. "I would describe it as blackmail."
As Chertoff sees it, Snowden's message to the government is this: "If you do anything that Snowden doesn't like he's going to try to hurt you by putting out information that could be damaging."
"To me, that's extortion," Chertoff said.
When Snowden arrived at Moscow's international airport on 23 June he was believed to be planning simply to transfer to a flight to Cuba and then to Venezuela to seek asylum. But the US cancelled his passport, stranding him. He hasn't been seen in public since, although he met with human rights activists and lawyers on 12 June. He's applied for temporary asylum in Russia and has said he'd like to visit the countries that offered him permanent asylum Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.
Russia won't budge on Snowden extradition
A spokesperson for President Vladimir Putin
says Russia has not budged from its refusal to extradite US leaker Edward
Snowden, who has applied for asylum.
Snowden, who is believed to have been staying at the Moscow airport transit zone since 23 June, applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week. The United States wants him sent home to face prosecution for espionage.
Asked by a reporter whether the government's position had changed, Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that "Russia has never extradited anyone and never will". There is no US-Russia extradition treaty.
Peskov also said that Putin is not involved in reviewing Snowden's application or discussions of the ex-NSA contractor's future with the US, though the Russian Security Service, the FSB, had been in touch with the FBI.
Snowden, who is believed to have been staying at the Moscow airport transit zone since 23 June, applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week. The United States wants him sent home to face prosecution for espionage.
Asked by a reporter whether the government's position had changed, Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that "Russia has never extradited anyone and never will". There is no US-Russia extradition treaty.
Peskov also said that Putin is not involved in reviewing Snowden's application or discussions of the ex-NSA contractor's future with the US, though the Russian Security Service, the FSB, had been in touch with the FBI.
Snowden issue 'not on Putin's agenda'
The fate of US intelligence leaker
Edward Snowden is not on President Vladimir Putin's agenda as the fugitive
stranded at a Moscow airport has made no direct approach to the Russian leader, the Kremlin
said on Friday.
Snowden, who the United States wants to put on trial for leaking details of a massive surveillance programme, has been marooned at Sheremetyevo airport for over a month without ever crossing the Russian border.
He has asked Russia for asylum and wants to live in the country. But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated that Putin was in no mood to fast-track the issue.
"Looking at the president's schedule you can conclude that he is not cancelling anything for the sake of Snowden," Peskov said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
"As far as I know, Snowden has not made any request that would require examination by the head of state. Correspondingly, the question has not stood and does not stand on the agenda," Peskov added.
Airport stay could last months
He said that Putin was not involved in communications with the American side over the issue, which he stressed was being handled by the head of the FBI Robert Mueller and the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov.
There had been expectations that Snowden could emerge this week from the transit zone of the airport with a document allowing him freedom of movement in Russia while his application is considered. But he and the document never materialised.
The head of a civic panel that advises the Russian migration service warned on Friday that Snowden could still stay half a year in Sheremetyevo while his asylum application is considered.
"He could stay in Sheremetyevo for as long as his legal position is not clarified," Vladimir Volokh told the Interfax news agency.
"The three months asylum procedure could be extended by another three months. So he could be in the transit zone for a maximum of six months."
Snowden, who the United States wants to put on trial for leaking details of a massive surveillance programme, has been marooned at Sheremetyevo airport for over a month without ever crossing the Russian border.
He has asked Russia for asylum and wants to live in the country. But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated that Putin was in no mood to fast-track the issue.
"Looking at the president's schedule you can conclude that he is not cancelling anything for the sake of Snowden," Peskov said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
"As far as I know, Snowden has not made any request that would require examination by the head of state. Correspondingly, the question has not stood and does not stand on the agenda," Peskov added.
Airport stay could last months
He said that Putin was not involved in communications with the American side over the issue, which he stressed was being handled by the head of the FBI Robert Mueller and the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov.
There had been expectations that Snowden could emerge this week from the transit zone of the airport with a document allowing him freedom of movement in Russia while his application is considered. But he and the document never materialised.
The head of a civic panel that advises the Russian migration service warned on Friday that Snowden could still stay half a year in Sheremetyevo while his asylum application is considered.
"He could stay in Sheremetyevo for as long as his legal position is not clarified," Vladimir Volokh told the Interfax news agency.
"The three months asylum procedure could be extended by another three months. So he could be in the transit zone for a maximum of six months."
Pope urges Catholics to shake up dioceses
Pope Francis showed his rebel side on Thursday,
urging young Catholics to shake up the church and make a "mess" in
their dioceses by going out into the streets to spread the faith. It's a
message he put into practice by visiting one of Rio's most violent slums and
opening the church's World Youth Day on a rain-soaked Copacabana Beach.
Francis was elected pope on a mandate to reform the church, and in four short months he has started doing just that: He has broken long-held Vatican rules on everything from where he lays his head at night to how saints are made. He has cast off his security detail to get close to his flock, and his first international foray as pope has shown the faithful appreciate the gesture.
Dubbed the "slum pope" for his work with the poor, Francis received a rapturous welcome in the Varginha shantytown, part of a slum area of northern Rio so violent it's known as the Gaza Strip. The 76-year-old Argentine seemed entirely at home, wading into cheering crowds, kissing people young and old and telling them the Catholic Church is on their side.
"No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!" Francis told a crowd of thousands who braved a cold rain and stood in a muddy soccer field to welcome him. "No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself."
It was a message aimed at reversing the decline in the numbers of Catholics in most of Latin America, with many poor worshippers leaving the church for Pentecostal and evangelical congregations. Those churches have taken up a huge presence in favelas, or shantytowns such as Varginha, attracting souls with nuts-and-bolts advice on how to improve their lives.
The Varginha visit was one of the highlights of Francis' weeklong trip to Brazil, his first as pope and one seemingly tailor-made for the first pontiff from the Americas.
Apologised in advance
The surprise, though, came during his encounter with Argentine pilgrims, scheduled at the last minute in yet another sign of how this spontaneous pope is shaking up the Vatican's staid and often stuffy protocol.
He told the thousands of youngsters, with an estimated 30 000 Argentines registered, to get out into the streets and spread their faith and make a "mess", saying a church that doesn't go out and preach simply becomes a civic or humanitarian group.
"I want to tell you something. What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses!" he said, speaking off the cuff in his native Spanish. "I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!"
Apparently realising the radicalness of his message, he apologised in advance to the bishops at home.
Later on Thursday, he travelled in his open-sided car through a huge crowd in the pouring rain to a welcoming ceremony on Copacabana beach. It was his first official event with the hundreds of thousands of young people who have flocked to Rio for World Youth Day. Vatican officials estimated the crowd at 1 million.
Cheering pilgrims from 175 nations lined the beachfront drive to catch a glimpse of the pontiff, with many jogging along with the vehicle behind police barricades. The car stopped several times for Francis to kiss babies and take a long sip of his beloved mate, the traditional Argentine tea served in a gourd with a straw, which was handed up to him by someone in the crowd.
Welcome move
After he arrived at the beach-front stage, though, the crowd along the streets melted away, driven home by the pouring rain that brought out vendors selling the plastic ponchos that have adorned cardinals and pilgrims alike during this unseasonably cold, wet week.
In an indication of the havoc wreaked by four days of steady showers, organisers made an almost unheard-of change in the festival's agenda, moving the Saturday vigil and climactic Sunday Mass to Copacabana Beach from a rural area 50km from the city centre. The terrain of the area, Guaratiba, had turned into a vast field of mud, making the overnight camping plans of pilgrims untenable.
The news was welcome to John White, a 57-year-old chaperone from the Albany, New York, diocese who attended the past five World Youth Days and complained that organisation in Rio was lacking.
"I'm super relieved. That place is a mud pit and I was concerned about the kid's health and that they might catch hypothermia," he said. "That's great news. I just wish the organisers would have told us."
Francis' visit to the Varginha slum followed in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who visited two such favelas during a 1980 trip to Brazil, and Mother Teresa, who visited Varginha itself in 1972. Her Missionaries of Charity order has kept a presence in the shantytown ever since.
Like Mother Teresa, Francis brought his own personal history to the visit: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently preached in the poverty-wracked slums of his native city, putting into action his belief that the Catholic Church must go to the farthest peripheries to preach and not sit back and wait for the most marginalised to come to Sunday Mass.
Sensitivity towards injustice
Francis' open-air car was mobbed on a few occasions as he headed into Varginha's heavily policed, shack-lined streets, but he never seemed in danger. He was showered with gifts as he walked down one of the slum's main drags without an umbrella to shield him from the rain. A well-wisher gave him a paper lei to hang around his neck and he held up another offering a scarf from his favourite soccer team, Buenos Aires' San Lorenzo.
"Events like this, with the pope and all the local media, get everyone so excited," said Antonieta de Souza Costa, a 56-year-old vendor and resident of Varginha. "I think this visit is going to bring people back to the Catholic Church."
Addressing Varginha's residents, Francis acknowledged that young people in particular have a sensitivity toward injustice.
"You are often disappointed by facts that speak of corruption on the part of people who put their own interests before the common good," Francis told the crowd. "To you and all, I repeat: Never yield to discouragement, do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished."
It was a clear reference to the violent protests that paralysed parts of the country in recent weeks as Brazilians furious over rampant corruption and inefficiency within the country's political class took to the streets.
Francis blasted what he said was a "culture of selfishness and individualism" that permeates society today, demanding that those with money and power share their wealth and resources to fight hunger and poverty.
"It is certainly necessary to give bread to the hungry this is an act of justice. But there is also a deeper hunger, the hunger for a happiness that only God can satisfy," he said.
Francis was elected pope on a mandate to reform the church, and in four short months he has started doing just that: He has broken long-held Vatican rules on everything from where he lays his head at night to how saints are made. He has cast off his security detail to get close to his flock, and his first international foray as pope has shown the faithful appreciate the gesture.
Dubbed the "slum pope" for his work with the poor, Francis received a rapturous welcome in the Varginha shantytown, part of a slum area of northern Rio so violent it's known as the Gaza Strip. The 76-year-old Argentine seemed entirely at home, wading into cheering crowds, kissing people young and old and telling them the Catholic Church is on their side.
"No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!" Francis told a crowd of thousands who braved a cold rain and stood in a muddy soccer field to welcome him. "No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself."
It was a message aimed at reversing the decline in the numbers of Catholics in most of Latin America, with many poor worshippers leaving the church for Pentecostal and evangelical congregations. Those churches have taken up a huge presence in favelas, or shantytowns such as Varginha, attracting souls with nuts-and-bolts advice on how to improve their lives.
The Varginha visit was one of the highlights of Francis' weeklong trip to Brazil, his first as pope and one seemingly tailor-made for the first pontiff from the Americas.
Apologised in advance
The surprise, though, came during his encounter with Argentine pilgrims, scheduled at the last minute in yet another sign of how this spontaneous pope is shaking up the Vatican's staid and often stuffy protocol.
He told the thousands of youngsters, with an estimated 30 000 Argentines registered, to get out into the streets and spread their faith and make a "mess", saying a church that doesn't go out and preach simply becomes a civic or humanitarian group.
"I want to tell you something. What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses!" he said, speaking off the cuff in his native Spanish. "I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!"
Apparently realising the radicalness of his message, he apologised in advance to the bishops at home.
Later on Thursday, he travelled in his open-sided car through a huge crowd in the pouring rain to a welcoming ceremony on Copacabana beach. It was his first official event with the hundreds of thousands of young people who have flocked to Rio for World Youth Day. Vatican officials estimated the crowd at 1 million.
Cheering pilgrims from 175 nations lined the beachfront drive to catch a glimpse of the pontiff, with many jogging along with the vehicle behind police barricades. The car stopped several times for Francis to kiss babies and take a long sip of his beloved mate, the traditional Argentine tea served in a gourd with a straw, which was handed up to him by someone in the crowd.
Welcome move
After he arrived at the beach-front stage, though, the crowd along the streets melted away, driven home by the pouring rain that brought out vendors selling the plastic ponchos that have adorned cardinals and pilgrims alike during this unseasonably cold, wet week.
In an indication of the havoc wreaked by four days of steady showers, organisers made an almost unheard-of change in the festival's agenda, moving the Saturday vigil and climactic Sunday Mass to Copacabana Beach from a rural area 50km from the city centre. The terrain of the area, Guaratiba, had turned into a vast field of mud, making the overnight camping plans of pilgrims untenable.
The news was welcome to John White, a 57-year-old chaperone from the Albany, New York, diocese who attended the past five World Youth Days and complained that organisation in Rio was lacking.
"I'm super relieved. That place is a mud pit and I was concerned about the kid's health and that they might catch hypothermia," he said. "That's great news. I just wish the organisers would have told us."
Francis' visit to the Varginha slum followed in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who visited two such favelas during a 1980 trip to Brazil, and Mother Teresa, who visited Varginha itself in 1972. Her Missionaries of Charity order has kept a presence in the shantytown ever since.
Like Mother Teresa, Francis brought his own personal history to the visit: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently preached in the poverty-wracked slums of his native city, putting into action his belief that the Catholic Church must go to the farthest peripheries to preach and not sit back and wait for the most marginalised to come to Sunday Mass.
Sensitivity towards injustice
Francis' open-air car was mobbed on a few occasions as he headed into Varginha's heavily policed, shack-lined streets, but he never seemed in danger. He was showered with gifts as he walked down one of the slum's main drags without an umbrella to shield him from the rain. A well-wisher gave him a paper lei to hang around his neck and he held up another offering a scarf from his favourite soccer team, Buenos Aires' San Lorenzo.
"Events like this, with the pope and all the local media, get everyone so excited," said Antonieta de Souza Costa, a 56-year-old vendor and resident of Varginha. "I think this visit is going to bring people back to the Catholic Church."
Addressing Varginha's residents, Francis acknowledged that young people in particular have a sensitivity toward injustice.
"You are often disappointed by facts that speak of corruption on the part of people who put their own interests before the common good," Francis told the crowd. "To you and all, I repeat: Never yield to discouragement, do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished."
It was a clear reference to the violent protests that paralysed parts of the country in recent weeks as Brazilians furious over rampant corruption and inefficiency within the country's political class took to the streets.
Francis blasted what he said was a "culture of selfishness and individualism" that permeates society today, demanding that those with money and power share their wealth and resources to fight hunger and poverty.
"It is certainly necessary to give bread to the hungry this is an act of justice. But there is also a deeper hunger, the hunger for a happiness that only God can satisfy," he said.
