Pope visits Colombian victims, rebels
Pope Francis brought together thousands of victims of Colombia’s half-century-long conflict with their former victimizers, presiding over a prayer for reconciliation Friday in hopes of solidifying the country’s peace process and healing still-fresh wounds.
In the highlight of his Colombia pilgrimage, Francis flew into an 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 center 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 courage in the face of loss and of guilt-ridden fighters who were now working to amend their wrongs.
Pastora Mira lost her father when she was 6 and later a husband, daughter and son in successive order over the next few decades. She recounted how three days after burying her youngest son in 2005, she cared for an injured paramilitary fighter in the son’s bed; upon seeing the boy’s photo he confessed to having been one of the killers and told of the torture that preceded his death.
“I thank God and little mother Mary for giving me the strength to treat him without causing harm and in spite of my incredible pain,” Mira said as Francis looked on in solemn silence.
Francis has made reconciliation the central theme of his fiveday 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. /