“The degradation of the environment...cannot be separated from the moral degradation of our communities.”

Francis is the first pope to come to the Amazon region, and he insisted that his first event and major speech of his visit to Peru should be to this place.

Society cannot look the other way and allow a culture that demeans the dignity of women to persist, Pope Francis said.

“Our country is so important to us. We carry the Dominican Republic in our hearts.”

It's near this forlorn corner of the Amazon that Pope Francis will visit Friday amid what has been called a modern-day gold rush of illegal miners threatening the world's largest rainforest.

Father Ernesto Cavassa was provincial of the Jesuits in Peru from 1998 to 2004, and president of the Conference of Latin American Jesuit Provincials from 2005 to 2012.