Vatican: Pope Will Bond With Mexico on First Trip Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in Mexico on Friday will reveal his ability to communicate with a people whose passionate adoration of his predecessor threatens to overshadow the pontiff's message of peace and continuing faith for a country shaken by horrific drug violence, the Vatican's ambassador pledged on the eve of the trip. Pope John Paul II was greeted with ecstatic scenes on each of his five trips to Mexico, whose faithful today consider him practically one of the country's patron saints. In contrast, there was little visible excitement about the more austere and less charismatic Benedict less than 24 hours before his arrival in Guanajuato, a deeply conservative and highly observant state in sun-baked central Mexico. Campgrounds with a capacity for hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were virtually empty. Traffic on the highways leading to the sites of the pope's visit didn't appear heavier than on an ordinary weekday night. Carlos Aguiar, president of the Mexican Episcopal Conference, said he expected the faithful to begin arriving Friday. The papal envoy, Christophe Pierre, said Benedict's visit would allow Mexicans to "discover the pope" and "his ability to communicate, to speak deeply, but simply." There were some stirrings of enthusiasm about Benedict's first trip to Mexico. About 60 people who described themselves as Catholics unaffiliated with any church burned brush to create a neater vista along a section of the pope's route from the airport to the Catholic school where he will spend his three nights in Mexico. It's the first time a pope has visited our community. We're excited," Maria Belen, a 36-year-old homemaker, said as she swept inches of powdery dust and gravel off a sidewalk. Farther down the highway, young men and women sold flags in the yellow-and-white Vatican colors, although few motorists stopped to buy them. The biggest crowd appeared to be the thousands gathered outside an evangelical Protestant church sitting at the highway exit leading to Bicentennial Park, where Benedict will deliver Mass on Sunday. We are not Roman Catholics. We are the Light of the World Church," a huge banner announced to passing motorists. Church spokesman Ezequiel Zamora said the convention of young missionaries had been planned long before the pope's visit was announced, and the evangelical church had no intention of upstaging the pontiff. Guanajuato is 93.8 percent Catholic, the highest percentage in Mexico, but Protestant and evangelical denominations have made deeper inroads in other parts of the country, particularly along the northern and southern borders. The last time a pope visited Mexico, more than 1 million believers cheered and wept in the streets of Mexico City. Dancers dressed in Aztec costumes shook rattles and blew conch shells inside the cathedral where John Paul II canonized the first Indian saint in the Americas. A decade later, Benedict comes to a church battling to overcome painful setbacks that include legalized abortion and gay marriage in the capital of the most populous Catholic country in the Spanish-speaking world. It is also a nation grappling with a drug war that has spread fear into once-tranquil regions such as Guanajuato.