Villavicencio, Colombia, Sep 8, 2017 / 03:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis told the Colombian people Friday that while it will be challenging, they must let go the anger caused by years of painful suffering and break the cycle of violence through a process of genuine forgiveness. “Violence leads to more violence, hatred to more hatred, death to more death. We must break this cycle which seems inescapable,” the Pope said Sept. 8. “This is only possible through forgiveness and reconciliation.” Pope Francis spoke during a prayer gathering in Villavicencio for national reconciliation as part of his Sept. 6-11 visit to Colombia. The trip, which marks his third tour of South America since his election, is largely the result of the country's ongoing peace process between the government and Colombia's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). After more than six decades of conflict, a peace deal was finally struck in August 2016, de-escalating a conflict which since 1964 has left some 260,000 people dead and an estimated 7 million displaced. Archbishop Oscar Urbina Ortega of Villavicencio greeted the Pope, offering his own brief reflection on the need for reconciliation. In his comments, the archbishop stressed that “you cannot have true conversion of heart that does not also produce social and political resonances. Because of this reconciliation is offered to everyone.” Reconciliation among the Colombian people “is a process, not only a goal or a perfect state,” Archbishop Urbina said, pointing to the strong desire of Colombians to overcome the pain caused by different forms of violence such as kidnapping, extortion, displacement, forced disappearance, forced recruitment, threats against life, and murders. These, he said, “have destroyed projects of life from thousands of families and communities,” and it will take time to help so many people rebuild their lives. “The search and constant effort to listen to each other, forgive each other and to try again will be the basis for generating a culture of fraternity,” Archbishop Urbina said, praying that that God would give them “a fruitful seed so that the tree of forgiveness, justice, reconciliation and peace blooms in this land.” Pope Francis then listened to four testimonies from victims of the violence, including former FARC fighters and former members of other paramilitary groups. The first  testimony was given by Juan Carlos Murcia Perdomo, who was part of FARC forces for 12 years, and reflected on truth. After being recruited at 16, he lost his left had working with explosives. He eventually ascended the ranks and was named commander of his own squad. However, Murcia said at the same time he felt used and had a strong sense of nostalgia for home, and little by little understood that violence wasn't the right path. He left FARC and later launched the “Funddrras Foundation,” which is dedicated to sports in a bid to offer youth an alternative to drugs and violence. Deisy Sanchez Rey, who at 16 was recruited by her brother to join the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary and drug trafficking group, spoke on justice. She shared her story of how she was eventually arrested and, after two years in prison, wanted to change her life. She began attending Mass and studying psychology, and now offers counseling to victims of drugs and violence. A third testimony, given by Luz Dary Landazury, the victim of an explosion set off by guerrilla forces, regarded mercy. In addition to nearly losing her left leg and suffering wounds all over her body, Landazury's 7-month-old daughter also suffered significant injuries to her face. Despite her anger, Landazury said she eventually understood that hate would only lead to more violence, and so began visiting other victims in order to help them learn to let go of their own anger and move forward with their lives. The final testimony, focused on peace, was given by Pastora Mira Garcia, whose father was killed by guerrillas when she was just 6-years-old. She also lost her first husband, her daughter, and her son to guerrilla violence. However, with what she describes as grace and the help of Our Lady, she was able not only to work with other families who had experienced similar losses, but eventually, in different moments, met and cared for both her father's killer, who was sick and abandoned, and her son's murderer, who was wounded. In his address following the testimonies, Pope Francis said he had been looking forward to the encounter “since my arrival in your country.” “You carry in your hearts and your flesh the signs of the recent, living memory of your people which is marked by tragic events, but also filled with heroic acts, great humanity, and the noble spiritual values of faith and hope,” he said. Colombia has sadly become “a land watered by the blood of thousands of innocent victims and by the heart-breaking sorrow of their families and friends,” he said, adding that these wounds “hurt us all, because every act of violence committed against a human being is a wound in humanity’s flesh.” The Pope said he didn't come to speak, but rather “to be close to you and to see you with my own eyes, to listen to you and to open my heart to your witness of life and faith. And if you will allow me, I wish also to embrace you and weep with you.” “I would like us to pray together and to forgive one another – I also need to ask forgiveness – so that, together, we can all look and walk forward in faith and hope.” He pointed to the Crucifix of Bojayá, where on May 2, 2002, 119 civilians, including 45 children, were killed by guerrilla forces in an effort to take the Atrato River region from the AUC. Victims had taken refuge in the town's church, but were all killed when the militants began launching gas cylinder bombs inside. Pope Francis noted how the crucifix pulled from the carnage shows a Christ “mutilated and wounded,” with no arms and no body. “But his face remains, with which he looks upon us and loves us.” To see Christ this way challenges us, he said, and reminds us of the “immense suffering, the many deaths and broken lives, and all the blood spilt in Colombia these past decades.” “Christ broken and without limbs is for us even more Christ, because he shows us once more that he came to suffer for his people and with his people,” Francis said. “He came to show us that hatred does not have the last word, that love is stronger than death and violence.” Turning to the testimonies given, the Pope said he was moved when listening to them, because they are stories that speak of pain and suffering, “but also, and above all, they are stories of love and forgiveness that speak to us of life and hope; stories of not letting hatred, vengeance or pain take control of our hearts.” “Thank you, Lord, for the witness of those who inflicted suffering and who ask for forgiveness; for the witness of those who suffered unjustly and who forgive,” he said, adding that “this is only possible with your help and presence.” Francis recalled how in her testimony, Mira Garcia had said that she wanted to place her suffering and that of all victims of the conflict at the feet of Christ Crucified, “so that united to his suffering, it may be transformed into blessing and forgiveness so as to break the cycle of violence that has reigned over Colombia.” “And you, dear Pastora, and so many others like you, have shown us that this is possible,” he said, adding that “with the help of Christ alive in the midst of the community, it is possible to conquer hatred, it is possible to conquer death and it is possible to begin again and usher in a new Colombia.” Noting how in her testimony Luz Dary shared that the wounds in her heart were deeper and harder to heal than the ones that scarred her body, he acknowledged that this is true, and commended her for realizing that “it is not possible to live with resentment, but only with a love that liberates and builds.” By going out of herself to help other victims heal and rebuild their lives, Dary found the peace and serenity needed to keep going, he said. And while physical wounds remain, “your spiritual gait is fast and steady, because you think of others and want to help them.” Turning to Deisy and Juan Carlos, the former FARC and AUC fighters, Pope Francis said their testimony helps one to understand that they, too, are victims. “In the end, in one way or another, we too are victims, innocent or guilty, but all victims,” he said. “We are all united in this loss of humanity that means violence and death.” “There is also hope for those who did wrong; all is not lost,” he said, noting that while justice requires that those who do wrong “undergo moral and spiritual renewal,” we must all “make a positive contribution to healing our society that has been wounded by violence.” Francis recognized that it might be hard to believe change is possible given the sheer amount of suffering and violence perpetrated by those pursuing their own agenda. However, “even when conflicts, violence and feelings of vengeance remain, may we not prevent justice and mercy from embracing Colombia’s painful history,” he said. “Let us heal that pain and welcome every person who has committed offenses, who admits their failures, is repentant and truly wants to make reparation, thus contributing to the building of a new order where justice and peace shine forth.” As part of the reconciliation process, “it is also indispensable to come to terms with the truth.” This, he said, “is a great challenge, but a necessary one,” because “truth is an inseparable companion of justice and mercy.” Both truth and justice are essential in building peace, he said, explaining that each prevents the other from being manipulated and transformed into “instruments of revenge against the weakest.” Truth, the Pope said, “means telling families torn apart by pain what happened to their missing relatives,” and “confessing what happened to minors recruited by violent people.” It also means “recognizing the pain of women who are victims of violence and abuse.” Pope Francis closed his address offering his perspective as “a brother and a father,” telling Colombia to  “open your heart as the People of God and be reconciled. Fear neither the truth nor justice.” “Do not be afraid of asking for forgiveness and offering it. Do not resist that reconciliation which allows you to draw near and encounter one another as brothers and sisters, and surmount enmity,” he said. “Now is the time to heal wounds, to build bridges, to overcome differences. It is time to defuse hatred, to renounce vengeance, and to open yourselves to a coexistence founded on justice, truth, and the creation of a genuine culture of fraternal encounter.” Francis then led attendees in a prayer for peace to the “Christ of  Bojayá,” in “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,” a 20th century prayer which is often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, and in the Hail Mary. Before departing, the Pope blessed all present. Read more

Bogotá, Colombia, Sep 8, 2017 / 02:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Prison inmates from jails around Colombia prepared themselves spiritually for the Pope's visit to their country through prayers, letters, messages, and watching his arrival to their country on television. Although the Pope Francis’s Sept. 6-10 trip to Colombia does not include a visit to a penitentiary, the Pope's visit has been viewed as a sign of peace and serenity for persons deprived of their liberty.   The trip holds even more special meaning for those who have asked that the government consider the Jubilee Law, through which inmates with minor offenses are granted a reduction of their sentence. Encouraged through the country's Catholic Penitentiary Ministry and the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute, inmates of the various prison centers throughout the country prepared spiritually for the Pope’s visit.   Fr. Edgar Galeano, chaplain at Colombia’s Model Jail in Bogota, explained that the inmates in his prison participated in prayer groups, daily recitation of the Rosary, and reading sacred scripture. In addition, every block read a book called “Take the First Step” in order to develop ten spiritual encounters on a weekly basis. Likewise, in the penitentiary centers, liturgical celebrations were held with the motto “Pope Francis: the prisoners in Colombia are praying for you.” During the services, they asked for forgiveness for their personal sins and lit candles to pray for the protection of Pope Francis on his journey. One of the inmates of Block 3 began painting a picture of Pope Francis three years ago. “Three years ago the initiative was born, a hope, a faith was born. Something in my heart told me that it would be a nice gesture to give something to a representative of Jesus.” Aldo, another one of the prison inmates, wrote a letter to the pontiff in which he said: “If I could speak to you personally, Pope Francis, I would ask you to perform three miracles: Forgive all my mistakes and all the times I have hurt others; to return to be a child with the memories lived, having repented of having done bad things; I do not want to move away from my family. I would like to start over.” Carlos Manuel Gutiérrez, a spokesman for the Building New and Better Roads Corporation in Bucaramanga, Colombia told the Colombian outlet Vanguardia that the letters written by the inmates are due to be delivered on Sept. 9 to Pope Francis, during his visit to Medellin. Read more

Bogotá, Colombia, Sep 8, 2017 / 02:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Prison inmates from jails around Colombia prepared themselves spiritually for the Pope's visit to their country through prayers, letters, messages, and watching his arrival to their country on television. Although the Pope Francis’s Sept. 6-10 trip to Colombia does not include a visit to a penitentiary, the Pope's visit has been viewed as a sign of peace and serenity for persons deprived of their liberty.   The trip holds even more special meaning for those who have asked that the government consider the Jubilee Law, through which inmates with minor offenses are granted a reduction of their sentence. Encouraged through the country's Catholic Penitentiary Ministry and the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute, inmates of the various prison centers throughout the country prepared spiritually for the Pope’s visit.   Fr. Edgar Galeano, chaplain at Colombia’s Model Jail in Bogota, explained that the inmates in his prison participated in prayer groups, daily recitation of the Rosary, and reading sacred scripture. In addition, every block read a book called “Take the First Step” in order to develop ten spiritual encounters on a weekly basis. Likewise, in the penitentiary centers, liturgical celebrations were held with the motto “Pope Francis: the prisoners in Colombia are praying for you.” During the services, they asked for forgiveness for their personal sins and lit candles to pray for the protection of Pope Francis on his journey. One of the inmates of Block 3 began painting a picture of Pope Francis three years ago. “Three years ago the initiative was born, a hope, a faith was born. Something in my heart told me that it would be a nice gesture to give something to a representative of Jesus.” Aldo, another one of the prison inmates, wrote a letter to the pontiff in which he said: “If I could speak to you personally, Pope Francis, I would ask you to perform three miracles: Forgive all my mistakes and all the times I have hurt others; to return to be a child with the memories lived, having repented of having done bad things; I do not want to move away from my family. I would like to start over.” Carlos Manuel Gutiérrez, a spokesman for the Building New and Better Roads Corporation in Bucaramanga, Colombia told the Colombian outlet Vanguardia that the letters written by the inmates are due to be delivered on Sept. 9 to Pope Francis, during his visit to Medellin. Read more

Mexico City, Mexico, Sep 8, 2017 / 11:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Following Mass during his five-day trip to Colombia, Pope Francis on Friday offered prayers for those affected by a major earthquake in Mexico the previous night. At the end of the Mass, Po... Read more

Villavicencio, Colombia, Sep 8, 2017 / 10:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During Mass in Colombia on Friday, Pope Francis beatified two martyrs from the country, both of whom were killed in hatred of the faith within the last 60 years. Bishop Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve and Fr. Pedro María Ramírez Ramos were declared “blessed” by the Pope, moving them further ahead on the road to canonization. The two martyrs, Francis said, are a sign of God's presence in Colombia, as promised at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, where it says: “I will be with you always, to the close of the age.” They are “an expression of a people who wish to rise up out of the swamp of violence and bitterness,” he said. Bishop Jaramillo, known for his care of the poor, served as bishop of Arauca. He became a target of the National Liberation Army, a Marxist guerrilla group in Colombia, when he spoke out against their kidnappings and involvement in the drug trade. Members of the guerrilla group kidnapped Bishop Jaramillo and killed him on Oct. 2, 1989. After decades of fighting, the National Liberation Army and the Colombian government arrived at an agreement for a temporary ceasefire earlier this week. It will go into effect Oct. 1. Born in La Plata in 1899, Fr. Ramirez became priest in 1931. When civil war erupted in Colombia between conservative and liberal groups, he was serving as a pastor in Armero. Local families offered to smuggle him to safety, but the priest refused to abandon his people. On April 10, 1948, he was dragged out of his church by a group of rebels, who accused him of hiding weapons for conservatives. They lynched him in the town square. He died forgiving his killers. The Pope spoke about reconciliation to large crowds gathered for an outdoor Mass in the Catama neighborhood of Villavicencio in Colombia. He pointed to the martyrs as an example of what it means to make reconciliation concrete. The most powerful protagonists in the peace-building process are those people who have been victims of violence themselves, but have overcome the temptation to act with vengeance, he said. “What is needed is for some to courageously take the first step in that direction, without waiting for others to do so. We need only one good person to have hope! And each of us can be that person!” he emphasized. This does not mean sugarcoating or ignoring injustice and conflict, he noted. Still, he said, “every effort at peace without a sincere commitment to reconciliation is destined to fail.” The Holy Family offers an example as well, he said. “How can we best allow the light in? What are the true paths of reconciliation?” he reflected. “Like Mary, by saying yes to the whole of history, not just to a part of it. Like Joseph, by putting aside our passions and pride. Like Jesus Christ, by taking hold of that history, assuming it, embracing it.” “That is who you are, that is who Colombians are, that is where you find your identity. God can do all this if we say yes to truth, to goodness, to reconciliation, if we fill our history of sin, violence and rejection with the light of the Gospel,” he said. In his homily, the Pope also referenced the day’s Gospel, which tells the long genealogy of Jesus. This long list helps us to keep a good perspective – it shows us what a small part we play in the vast history of the world and integrates into salvation history “those pages which are the darkest and saddest, moments of desolation and abandonment comparable to exile.” The people of Colombia have their own genealogies, he continued. “Here too we can write genealogies full of stories, many of love and light; others of disagreement, insults, even of death…How many of you can tell of exile and grief!” The genealogy of Christ mentions numerous women, he pointed out. In communities still weighed down with “patriarchal and chauvinistic customs, it is good to note that the Gospel begins by highlighting women who were influential and made history.” Noting that Sept. 8 is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Francis particularly highlighted Mary as an example of the light of reconciliation breaking into the world, because she is “the first light who announces night’s end, and above all, the impending day.” “Her birth helps us to understand the loving, tender, compassionate plan of love in which God reaches down and calls us to a wonderful covenant with him, that nothing and no one will be able to break.” Mary transmits God’s light, he concluded. And just like Mary, we need to say ‘yes’ to reconciliation, “and sing with her ‘the wonders of the Lord,’ for as he has promised to our fathers, he helps all nations and peoples, he helps Colombia which today wishes to be reconciled; it is a promise made also to its descendants forever.”   Read more

Miami, Fla., Sep 7, 2017 / 05:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As Hurricane Irma moves through the Atlantic – one of the strongest storms ever recorded in that ocean – Catholic groups are offering prayers and helping prepare for the recovery efforts... Read more

Bogotá, Colombia, Sep 7, 2017 / 04:26 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Just as Christ called Peter to cast his nest where there seemed to be no fish, Christ is calling Colombians to take risks in order to build a culture of peace and life, Pope Francis said in the capital Bogota on Thursday. “...the word of Jesus has something special that leaves no-one indifferent; his word has the power to convert hearts, to change plans and projects. It is a word demonstrated by action, not academic findings, cold agreements, removed from people’s pain; for his is a word valid both for the safety of the shore and the fragility of the sea,” Pope Francis said Sept. 7 during his homily at a Mass in Simón Bolívar Park. The Pope is on a 6-day trip to the South American country, which has just recently established a peace accord between the government and the guerilla group FARC. His trip is centering on peace and reconciliation, with the overarching theme “Let us take the first step”. Pope Francis reflected on the Gospel of Luke and the calling of Simon Peter the fishermen, one of the first disciples called to follow Christ, during the homily on the first full day of his trip. “Jesus scatters and destroys all this darkness with the command he gives to Peter in the boat: ‘Put out into the deep sea,’” the Holy Father noted. Despite his doubts, Peter follows the command of Christ and is able to bring into his boat a huge haul of fish. Colombia itself has known its fair share of darkness, he added, including war, political division and corruption, and a disrespect for human life. But like Peter, Colombia is called to respond to the call of Christ to take the first step out of darkness and toward peace, he said. “In Bogotá and in Colombia a vast community journeys forwards, called to conversion in a healthy net that gathers everyone into unity, working for the defense and care of human life, especially when it is most fragile and vulnerable: in a mother’s womb, in infancy, in old age, in conditions of incapacity and in situations of social marginalization. Great multitudes of people in Bogotá and in Colombia can also become truly vibrant, just and fraternal communities, if they hear and welcome the Word of God,” the Pope said. Evangelizing men and women with the Word of God will raise up a generation of people ready to hear the call of the Lord and able to foster peace and a culture of life, he added. He urged Colombians to work together and rely on each other in this common cause. “He calls everyone, so that no one is left to the mercy of the storms; to go into the boat of every family, that sanctuary of life; to make space for the common good above any selfish or personal interests; to carry the most fragile and promote their rights,” he said. He urged Colombians to remember to follow the Lord on the path of peace, even when it may seem difficult or they may be afraid. “...in the same way as Simon, Jesus invites us to put out into the deep, he prompts us to take shared risks, to leave behind our selfishness and to follow him; to give up our fears which do not come from God, which paralyze us and prevent us becoming artisans of peace, promoters of life.” Read more