Pope Benedict xvi made his first state visit to Mexico on the weekend and met with President Felipe Calderón in what the Vatican has described as a courtesy visit in the middle of a purely pastoral trip to Mexico and Cuba.

Many political observers have been arguing for months, however, that the pope’s real purpose for visiting Mexico is to bolster President Calderón’s pro-Catholic National Action Party (pan) just as Mexico’s political campaign season kicks into high gear.

“The party closest to the Vatican, the pope and Catholic religion, is the pan,” said political analyst Gabriel Guerra in an interview with a New York Times correspondent. “They would have the most to benefit.”

The Vatican was in conflict with an anti-clerical Mexican government for most of the past century, until the pan came to power in 2000. Now, with elections looming in 12 weeks and pan presidential candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota trailing some 11 percent in the polls, the pope may have to lend his alleged favorite some Vatican-created credibility.

“It’s not a pastoral visit, it’s an electoral visit for the pan,” said Mexican poet Homero Aridjis to a New York Times correspondent. “Benedict isn’t going to cities like Ciudad Juárez,” the gritty border metropolis that has been traumatized by violence. “If it was a spiritual visit, he would go to the places that really need his presence and his ministry,” he said.

Vázquez Mota comes from a highly conservative, private sector guild and has the support of an important coalition of ultra-rightist forces. This coalition is rumored to include the notorious El Yunque, a secret society allegedly wanting to “defend the Catholic religion and fight against the forces of Satan, even through violence” and to “establish the kingdom of God on Earth.”

Regardless of which candidate wins this July’s election, expect Pope Benedict and his Vatican hierarchy to continue meddling in the political affairs of not just Mexico, but all of Latin America.

The European Union and the Vatican will soon join forces in a move that will subjugate Latin America to the power of a revived Holy Roman Empire. For proof of this, read the chapter “Europe’s Latin Assault” in our He Was Right booklet.