Pope Francis Urges Colombia to Seize ‘Second Chance’<br />7, 2017<br />BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Leading prayers before a huge crowd in Bogotá, the capital, Pope Francis on Thursday urged Colombians to avoid "the thirst for revenge"<br />and finally accept peace, whose arrival last year ended a half-century of war but left the country bitterly divided.<br />Francis said that The command to cast nets is directed not only at Simon Peter,<br />The pope, offering his first public Mass during a six-day visit to Colombia, couched the country’s long, often halting road toward<br />an end to its conflict in biblical terms, comparing it to the frustrations of Jesus’ followers as they fished the Sea of Galilee.<br />Though the former rebels have largely held up their end of the bargain — disarming and forming a political party — some critics say<br />that the government has fallen short in providing assistance to them, or even providing water and power to areas where they disarmed.<br />He has announced no plans to meet with any representatives of the former rebels on this trip,<br />and he has left them largely unmentioned, focusing his remarks instead on Colombians who were marginalized during the 52-year conflict — women and the poor.<br />Juan de Itukuykuina Tatita, an indigenous leader of the Igna group in southern Colombia, said he hoped<br />that the pope’s visit would solidify the end of a conflict that terrorized members of his native group for generations.<br />And here is where the greatness of the country lies, in<br />that there is room for all and all are important." Colombia’s long conflict left an estimated 220,000 dead as Marxist rebels battled the government and paramilitary groups throughout the country.
