Pope Scolds Overzealous Mexicans Who Touched Him

Pope Francis stepped back from a crowd during a handshaking event and scolded them for touching him and pulling his sleeves.

The Pope, who was visiting the town of Morelia, Mexico, looks visibly upset in the video shown below as he tells the crowd in Spanish, “Don’t be selfish. Don’t be selfish.”

He became upset after one of the people in the crowd pulled him down on top of a young man in a wheelchair, CNN reported. He regained his balance shortly and was helped by his security detail to stand back from the crowd.

Over the loudspeaker, directions to the crowd could be heard saying, “”We are asking you to be careful. Please contain yourself. Pope Francis wants to greet us, but if we pile up, it will be difficult to do so.”

Security was very tight because of the dangerous nature of the region where he was visiting. The state of Michoacan has been hit hard by drugs, smuggling and trafficking carried out by violent drug cartels, Breitbart Texas’ Lana Shadwick reported on Monday. The region has been besieged with violence, not only from warring drug cartels, but also by vigilantes who have armed themselves to fight back against the cartels.

Breitbart Texas’ Sylvia Longmire reported in early December that the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) is one of the fastest growing—and most violent—criminal organizations in Mexico. This new cartel began as the armed wing of the notorious Sinaloa Federation. It operates almost exclusively in the Guadalajara area. According to InsightCrime.org, the CJNG arose after the 2010 death of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, the Federation’s representative in Jalisco and this unleashed a fight for succession.

The 79-year-old Pope Francis urged young people to resist the lure of easy money from dealing drugs, David Ono with ABC-13 reported from Morelia. He urged Mexico’s youth to value themselves. “Jesus, who gives us hope, would never ask us to be hit men,” he said.

From Morelia, the Pope traveled to Ciudad Juarez in the drug ravaged state of Chihuahua near Mexico’s border with Texas.

This article has been updated.

Bob Price is a senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.