Pope, in former combat zone, pitches mercy
Colombia’s president will pray with his rival
VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia — Pope Francis traveled Friday to an area once besieged by leftist rebels to pray with victims of Colombia’s long conflict, urging them to overcome their grief by forgiving their former assailants.
At an open-air Mass in the central city of Villavincencio, Francis praised those who had resisted
“the understandable temptation for vengeance” and sought out peace. He said their choice in no way legitimized the injustices they suffered, but rather showed a willingness to build a peaceful future .
“Every effort at peace without sincere commitment to reconciliation is destined to fail,” he warned.
The highlight of his visit was to be what the Vatican has termed a “great prayer meeting for national reconciliation,” bringing victims and victimizers together.
It was bound to be a deeply emotional gathering for Francis, who has made reconciliation the central theme of his trip Colombia after promising to visit the country upon the signing of last year’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The event was drawing thousands of victims from all walks of life: soldiers who lost limbs clearing land mines, mothers whose children were forcibly recruited by the rebels never to be seen again and farmers driven off their land by right-wing paramilitary groups.
Ahead of the event, the former commander of the FARC published a public letter in which he asked Francis for forgiveness.
“Your frequent reminders about the infinite mercy of God move me to beg for your forgiveness for any tear or pain we’ve caused Colombian society or any of its individuals,” wrote Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko.
In another sign that the pope’s message of reconciliation may be getting through to the deeply polarized nation, the mayor of Medellin confirmed that President Juan Manuel Santos will pray together Saturday at a Mass in Colombia’s second-largest city with his predecessor and arch-rival, President Alvaro Uribe.
The two former allies split over Santos’ signing of a peace deal with the FARC, and their feud has hampered the chances of successful implementation of the accord. Francis has tried to bring the two together, sponsoring a face-to-face meeting at the Vatican last December after Uribe led the opposition that narrowly rejected the original accord in a nationwide referendum.
At the start of Friday’s Mass, Francis beatified two priests intimately identified with Colombia’s conflict. The pope declared them martyrs who “shed their blood for the love of the flock to whom they were entrusted.”
The Rev. Pedro Ramirez was murdered in the turbulent days following the 1948 assassination of a leftist firebrand Jorge Eliecer Gaitan — a slaying that marked the start of Colombia’s descent into political violence and the eventual arming of poor farmers excluded by the elite-driven political system.
Bishop Jesus Jaramillo was gunned down in 1989 in the eastern city of Arauca by rebels with of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, with whom he clashed on theological grounds.