Pope heads to Panama for giant youth meeting

Pope Francis will make his first trip to Panama on Wednesday for a gathering of more than 150,000 young Catholics from across the globe at the World Youth Day festival.

The 82-year-old pope will use the major event on the Catholic calendar to address the problems of poverty, corruption and migration in his native Latin America, church officials said.

"Our youth, particularly in Central America, need opportunities," said Panama Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa.

Often, their "hard reality" was a choice between emigration or "falling into the clutches of drug traffickers," said Ulloa, in Rome for a preparatory visit.

It will be Francis' third World Youth Day event, having presided over the gathering in Rio de Janeiro shortly after his election as pope in 2013 and again in Krakow, Poland in 2016.

In Poland, he challenged conservative governments in Central and Eastern Europe to soften their resistance to migrants seeking refuge from conflict in the Middle East.

In a similar way, he is expected in Panama to stand up for migrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras who make up the majority of those traveling in caravans to the US border, despite the opposition of President Donald Trump and the American right.

"Many of the young people who are participating in the WYD are immigrants themselves," Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said.

Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans cross the border into Mexico every year, heading north in search of a better life. Millions more have fled economic collapse and political repression in Venezuela, straining social services in neighboring countries.

"The recent image of migrant caravans from Central America, with all their suffering, will be very much in mind," said Ulloa.

In an advance message to the event, Francis said many young people, both believers and non-believers, had "a strength that can change the world."