A delegation from the Colombian Catholic Church met this Thursday, March 24, with Pope Francis in Rome. Among the issues addressed were poverty, increased violence and the implementation of the Peace Agreement.
Regarding the peace process being carried out in Colombia, the Archbishop of Popayán, Msgr. Ómar Sánchez Cubillos, one of the delegates at the meeting, shared with the Vatican News, one of the concerns that the holy father was warned, “we share with him that the commitment to peace in the country has gone into the shadow, has fallen within the framework of interest national, we have resigned ourselves to the conflict.”
It should be noted that the Colombian Episcopal Conference has repeatedly alerted the national government to the increase in violence in several areas of Colombia, mainly in Arauca, Cauca, Chocó and Antioquia. In his dialogue with the church media, the Colombian archbishop stressed that, “Let's say that peace is not a national purpose now. Colombians, the groups that lead political parties, do not consider peace to be a determining variable in Colombia,” he emphasized.
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The priest from Popayán, said he hopes that the “new electoral contests will give a little more projection to these big issues.” For its part, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stated in its 2021 report that six different armed conflicts are currently taking place in the country.
Another item on the agenda, of the meeting between the pope and the Colombian Church, was the situation of inequality and poverty facing the country. At this point the archbishop was clear in saying that “in the great economic platform that the country has, it is not possible to integrate so many poor people. There is poverty that is very distant from big capitals, and that is scandalous, that gap hurts and we share it with the Holy Father”, he added.
The meeting lasted approximately 40 minutes and the Colombian bishops stated that the meeting took place in a “serene and sincere” atmosphere. “It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to meet the Holy Father to talk about the centrality, the raison d'être of the Catholic Church throughout the world, which is evangelization,” said Archbishop Luis José Rueda Aparicio, Archbishop of Bogotá and president of the Episcopal Conference of Colombia (CEC).
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In dialogue with La W, Monsignor Luis José Rueda Aparicio, archbishop of Bogotá, also discussed the issues of the meeting. “Pope Francis has listened to us on the subject of drug trafficking, its consequences, the humanitarian issue, poverty, inequality and what it has to do with the Colombian-Venezuelan border”
The delegation that met was composed of the President of the National Church, Monsignor Luis José Rueda Aparicio; the Vice President, Monsignor Ómar Sánchez, and the Secretary General, Monsignor Luis Manuel Alí Herrera.
After the meeting with the pope, the Colombian delegation confirmed that the next person in the process of beatification and canonization will be Mother Berenice, “a very holy woman who did a beautiful apostolic work and is the mother of all the Sisters of the Annunciation who, in Colombia and in so many regions of Latin America, have a very important evangelizing extension,” Monsignor Luis Manuel Alí Herrera, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Bogotá, told the Vatican media outlet, who also traveled to Rome, Italy.
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