Pope visits former Colombia war zone to preach forgiveness
The event drew thousands of victims from all walks of life.
Pope Francis has travelled to an area once besieged by leftist rebels to pray with victims of Colombia’s long conflict and urge 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 instead sought out peace.
He said their choice in no way legitimised the injustices they suffered, but showed a willingness to build a peaceful future together.
“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 victimisers together before a poignant symbol of the conflict – a mutilated statue of Christ rescued from a church destroyed in a rebel mortar attack.
Francis has made reconciliation the central theme of his five-day visit to Colombia after promising to visit the country on the signing of last year’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).
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.
The long-time rebel commander, who is undergoing medical treatment in Cuba following a stroke, said he regretted that he was unable to be present for Francis’s visit.
Declaring himself a “devout admirer” of the first Latin American pope, he praised Francis’s insistence on the dignity of every human being and outspoken criticism of an economic system in which rich nations loot the riches of poorer ones.
In another sign that the pope’s message of reconciliation may be getting through to the deeply polarised nation, the mayor of Medellin confirmed that President Juan Manuel Santos will pray on Saturday at a Mass in Colombia’s second-largest city with his predecessor and arch-rival, Alvaro Uribe. Previously the two had refused to appear together at any papal events.
The two former allies split over Mr Santos’s 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 Mr Uribe led the opposition that narrowly rejected the original accord in a nationwide referendum.
