“The Pope will definite visit next year and I hope he can come in the
first half. His visit will be of crucial importance to us because the
agreement between the government and the guerrillas is a political
agreement but now peace must be built and peace is built through
forgiveness, reconciliation and fraternity and all these things don’t
come with a political agreement, we need to work on them every day. As
such, the Pope’s visit is important because it will illuminate us and
give us strength to go on,” said Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez,
Archbishop of Bogotá (Colombia) and President of the Latin American
council of bishops (CELAM), in a statement to the Italian Church’s news
agency SIR.
In the interview with SIR, the cardinal commented on the decision to
award Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, the 2016 Nobel Peace
Prize. Santos led the country to peace with the country’s FARC
guerrillas.
“The situation in Colombia is not easy at the moment,” said
the cardinal who has been in Monte Carlo in recent days attending the
CCEE’s plenary assembly.
An extraordinary meeting between Colombia’s bishops has been
scheduled for next Thursday, to discuss what role the Church is to play
in this peace process and what it’s contribution should be.