UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody
Posted on October 30, 2016 by Betty Clermont
Pope Francis refused multiple requests for his participation or presence during the peace process. He also advocated the ideology and vocabulary for those who opposed the peace agreement.
In April 2015, Pope Francis’ secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sent a letter to Colombian bishops on behalf of the pope “in the hope of seeing them soon during one of his trips to Latin America.” (Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay in July 2015, Cuba in September 2015, Mexico in February 2016). Archbishop Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, president of the Colombian bishops’ conference, said he hoped it would be in “early 2016 …. This date was tentatively picked as it should coincide with the eventual ratification of the peace agreement should it be completed on time.”
[As of April 2015] in the peace talks which the government of President Juan Manuel Santos has held since October of 2012 with the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America’s oldest insurgency group that has been in existence since 1964, there is ample progress.
The talks were started in hopes of ending a conflict that has claimed more than 220,000 lives in over half a century of violence, and displaced several million more ….
Although there is opposition from the most conservative sectors, led by former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) who is the most outspoken opponent of the peace talks and a man with links to illegal right-wing paramilitary groups and sectors of the Armed Forces, the overwhelming majority of the populace supports an end to the violence and the beginning of a new stage of peace.
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