In homilies and messages for the new year, Colombian prelates called for a commitment to nonviolence, peace, and forgiveness.A revised peace agreement signed by the government and the country’s major leftist guerilla group offered hope for an end to a civil conflict that began in 1964.
It will be a happy new year for the conflict’s victims, said Archbishop Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, the president of the episcopal conference, if the victims discover “the possibility and the courage to forgive.”
The South American nation of 47.2 million is 90% Catholic.