Pope Ends Colombia Visit With Plea for Those ‘Still Being Sold as Slaves’<br />10, 2017<br />MEDELLÍN, Colombia — Pope Francis concluded his trip to Colombia on Sunday by visiting the bones of a 17th-century Roman Catholic saint who devoted his life to helping slaves,<br />and whose legacy the pontiff called an example to all for his defense of the poor.<br />It was the last day of events on Francis’s six-day visit to Colombia, meant as a gentle nudge to the country’s Catholics to forgive crimes committed during a half-century of conflict between the government<br />and the country’s main rebel group, which signed a peace treaty late last year.<br />On Sunday, he also briefly addressed the political crisis in neighboring Venezuela, calling for "the rejection of all violence in political life<br />and for a solution to the current grave crisis, which affects everyone, particularly the poorest and most disadvantaged of society." Please verify you’re not a robot by clicking the box.<br />"They either beg for some expressions of humanity, moments of tenderness, or they flee by sea or land because they have lost everything, primarily their dignity and their rights." The pope drew parallels between the church’s work and<br />that of Peter Claver, the patron saint of slaves, who worked as a missionary among Africans in Colombia during the 17th-century slave trade.<br />On Friday, he beatified two clerics who were killed during the armed conflict,<br />and on Saturday he issued a decree giving national bishop conferences greater authority in translating liturgical language — potentially changing both the ways and the words in which Catholics worship in different places.<br />As many as five million Colombians attended Francis’s events, the government said on Sunday — adding<br />that during his time in the country homicides dropped around 60 percent.
