POPE URGES FORGIVENESS IN PEACETIME COLOMBIA

Pontiff also asks that inequality be addressed

BOGOTA, Colombia — Pope Francis urged young Colombians on Thursday to take the lead in promoting forgiveness after a half-century of armed conflict, and he demanded the ruling class address the entrenched inequalities that sparked Latin America’s longest-running armed rebellion.

“There has been too much hatred and violence,” Francis told a crowd at Bogota’s presidential palace that included disabled children and soldiers with amputated limbs.

Francis received a raucous welcome on his first full day in Colombia, with young choir members abandoning their positions in the palace courtyard and throwing their arms around him as he arrived. The crowd was equally jubilant at Bogota’s main Plaza Bolivar, where about 22,000 flag-waving Colombians interrupted him repeatedly.

History’s first Latin American pope took the interruptions, protocol hiccups and security breaches in stride, joking with the crowds and reveling in the adoration of one of the continent’s most staunchly Roman Catholic countries.

In his first major speech of his trip, Francis appealed to President Juan Manuel Santos and Colombia’s political, cultural and economic elite to avoid the temptation to seek vengeance as the country emerges from the conflict and works to rebuild. Instead, he said they should commit themselves to “heal wounds, build bridges, strengthen relationships and support one another.”

One year after the government signed a peace accord with rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known by its Spanish acronym FARC, the guns have fallen silent and 7,000 rebels are transitioning back to civilian life. But Colombians remain badly divided over the accord, with conservative opponents seeing it as too generous for the guerrillas who were behind scores of atrocities during the conflict.