Pope Francis is on his way back to Rome after he closed the biggest-ever Roman Catholic youth festival with a Mass before tens of thousands of faithful on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach.

Francis made the populist entrance we’ve come to expect from him, close to the crowds in an open vehicle, physically greeting the pilgrims and occasionally sharing a swig off their iced teas.

He encouraged young Catholics to get out of their parochial boundaries in order to help others, and encouraged the priesthood to get out o their churches and into the favelas and minister to the poor.

But in the Rio favela where the Pope had visited earlier in the week, there was a feeling of emptiness. 

“For the whole week, no one here could talk about anything but the pope's visit,” said 27-year old resident Rafael Ribeiro Marques, “And it meant improvements in our trash system, our street lights.  But the people that live here are in dire need of more improvements.”

Rio authorities gave the slum a quick sprucing up with repaved streets, new streetlights, and repaired utilities.  But that was just in the part the Pope visited,

Ribeiro says the community needs much more, and as for the soccer field where Francis gave a speech?

“They ruined the grass.”