Pope brings together Colombian victims, ex-guerrillas

VILLAVICENCIO, COLOMBIA — Pope Francis brought together thousands of victims of Colombia’s half-century-long conflict with former guerrillas and paramilitaries who harmed them, presiding over a prayer for reconciliation Friday in hopes of solidifying the country’s peace process and healing lingering wounds.

In the highlight of his Colombia pilgrimage, Francis flew into area once besieged by leftist rebels to pray with victims and urge them to overcome their grief by forgiving their assailants. And he urged the ex-fighters to have the courage to seek that forgiveness, saying peace will fail unless both sides reconcile.

Looming large over the ceremony in the central city of Villavicencio was a poignant symbol of the conflict: a mutilated statue of Christ rescued from a church that was destroyed in a 2002 rebel mortar attack in the impoverished town of Bojaya. The battle-scarred torso, missing its arms and legs, was front and centre onstage as a tangible reminder of one of the war’s worst massacres. “As we look at it, we remember not only what happened on that day but also the immense suffering, the many deaths and broken lives and all the blood spilled in Colombia these past decades,” Francis said at the foot of the statue.

He told the crowd he wanted to come to Villavicencio to pray with them and weep with them, and help them to forgive. He embraced victims and perpetrators alike. He called for truth and justice, saying families deserve to know the fates of missing relatives and children recruited to fight. But he also called for mercy, saying truth should never lead to revenge.

He heard four heart-wrenching stories of women who lost sons, daughters and husbands to the violence, and of guiltridden fighters who were now working to amend their wrongs.

Francis has made reconciliation the central theme of his five-day trip after promising to visit the country upon the signing of last year’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The event drew thousands of victims from all walks of life: soldiers who lost limbs clearing landmines, mothers whose children were forcibly recruited by the rebels never to be seen again and farmers driven off their land by the right-wing paramilitaries.