Pope Francis headed to Colombia today to try to help heal the wounds of Latin America's longest- running armed conflict, bolstered by a new cease-fire with a holdout rebel group but fully aware of the fragility of the country's peace process.
During a deeply symbolic five-day visit starting today, Francis is expected to press Colombian leaders to address the social and economic disparities that fuelled five decades of armed rebellion, while encouraging ordinary Colombians to balance their need for justice with forgiveness.
In a video message on the eve of his departure, Francis urged all Colombians to take a "first step" and reach out to one another for the sake of peace and the future.
"Peace is what Colombia has been looking for and working for for such a long time," he said. "A stable and lasting peace, so that we can see one another and treat one another as brothers, not as enemies."
A year after the Colombian government signed the peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the nation remains bitterly divided over the terms of the deal even as guerrillas have laid down their arms and begun returning to civilian life.
Even the Catholic Church hierarchy, which was instrumental in facilitating the peace talks and is now spearheading the process of reconciliation, was divided over what many Colombians saw as the overly generous terms offered to rebels behind atrocities.
Former President Alvaro Uribe, a fierce opponent of the peace deal, wrote a letter to the pope yesterday expressing concern that the deal with the rebels had fuelled a rise in drug trafficking and created economic uncertainties with the potential to destroy Colombia's social fabric.
"Your Holiness, we all want peace, but we have to build it with laws and the determination to guard against and punish violence that spreads hopelessness and distances us from God's word," Uribe wrote in the letter, which was leaked to local media.
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