Vatican City, Jul 7, 2015 / 10:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the first full day of his apostolic journey to South America Pope Francis had already drawn more than 1 million people to his first public Mass in Guayaquil, the Vatican’s spokesman estimates.

“There were a lot of the people in the streets of Guayaquil. 300,000 or 500,000 people were on the streets of the city,” Holy See press officer Fr. Federico Lombardi told journalists July 6.