Mexico City, Feb 25 (EFE).- Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Jose Antonio Meade said Wednesday that any differences with the Vatican were now “completely settled,” after Pope Francis had warned in a private letter of the risk of the “Mexicanization” of Argentina, and he added that the invitation for the pontiff to visit Mexico “remains open.”

 

In a meeting with reporters, Mexico’s top diplomat said that after the pope made reference to the increase in drug trafficking in his native Argentina, any “difference that there could have been” with the Holy See had been “completely settled” through dialogue.

 

“Mexico’s relationship with the Vatican … (and) with the pope is a relationship of great importance, … fond and close, as the Vatican said” on Tuesday, he noted.

 

Meade emphasized that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s personal invitation to Francis to visit the country “remains open.”

 

“We know of the interest … that the pope has for Mexico and we will be attentive to when … it might be convenient, reiterating on Mexico’s part the full readiness and the full pleasure we would have for him to visit our country,” he added.

 

The pontiff earlier this week had expressed his concern over the increase in drug trafficking in Argentina in a private letter to Buenos Aires lawmaker Gustavo Vera in which he urged him “to avoid the Mexicanization” of the country.

 

“I was speaking with some Mexican bishops and that is to be feared,” said the pope in the missive published on the Web page of the nongovernmental organization La Alameda, which Vera heads.

 

The Mexican government on Monday sent a diplomatic note to the Vatican, the first since they have had bilateral relations, saying that it felt the pontiff had stigmatized the country by using the term “Mexicanization.”