“Welcome to Hell Paso”: Artist Depicts Pope in “Evil” Way, Residents Are Offended

Pope Francis enlightened the areas of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso during his visit and papal mass on Wednesday, but El Paso residents are already upset up thanks to a mural on the back of a smoke shop.

Artist Justin Rojas was inspired by all the hype that came with the Pope's visit to Juarez to create a unique mural he calls, "Welcome to Hell Paso." It depicts the Pope in a more evil way and I only use evil because KVIA has used that word and well he looks a little scary. Rojas wanted to depict the way people were going through extreme measures to see the Pope, "I started brainstorming and I just thought with all the madness going on and thought about how everything got crazy over this," Justin Rojas said.

The main artist behind the mural, Gabe Vasquez told KVIA he didn't draw this to create controversy. It was his way of pushing his own artistic interests as he had to leave his comfort zone and really pour his soul into the mural. The mural can't be seen from the street but people still managed to be offended by the image. Rojas says they will probably end up covering the mural when they are inspired to create another piece of interesting artwork. I think it looks like a pretty cool image for a local metal band's album. Just saying.