AMERICA/COLOMBIA - “The celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Bishops’ Conference hopes to strengthen the faith and Christian identity of the Colombian people, revealing the many positive aspects of evangelization and of the human advancements made over the last hundred years.”

Bogota (Agenzia Fides) – ““The celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Bishops’ Conference hopes to strengthen the faith and Christian identity of the Colombian people, revealing the many positive aspects of evangelization and of the human advancements made over the last hundred years,” said Bishop Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, President of the Colombian Bishops’ Conference, in his opening address given at the Plenary Assembly, in which he presented a summary of the past several years. He recalled how “peace has been a constant concern for the Church during this present century,” in addition to several non-negotiable themes: the family, education, social justice, and Christian morals.
Recalling what the Bishops had mentioned during the First Plenary Assembly in 1908, “The zeal for your present and future welfare, the tender love that inspires us in our relation with you: after God, these have been the motives of our acts and initiatives,” the President of the Bishops’ Conference affirmed that these words from one hundred years ago “can and should be the message for this Conference of 2008: the tender love of the good shepherd who, in his missionary pastoral labor, reaches out with zeal to the people of God in Colombia, in search of their present and future welfare.”
Over these past hundred years, Bishop Castro Quiroga said, the Colombian Bishops’ Conference has stood out for its great unity and consistency in criteria. There have also been “additions and changes, enabling us to refer to it as a hundred years of change in the midst of continuity.” However, together with this, there has also been several worrisome steps backwards.
The President of the Bishops’ Conference then proceeded in indicating some of the main challenges that have arisen in the country today. First of all, is the ethical challenge, as “many Colombians continue to be of the opinion that illegal operations (para-military operations, drug-trafficking, bribery, kidnapping, embezzlement, and other forms of violence) are the best means in achieving what they desire in terms of power, possession, and intelligence.” Secondly, there is the spiritual challenge that should make all understand that in order to reach peace, there is a need for love, forgiveness, the certainty of Christian hope in moments of difficulties, and the value of commitment, inviting “leaders and opposing sides to contract serious commitments to peace, with serious compliance, opening up to a future that we all desire.”
A third challenge would be in the area of pastoral work, as “there are still many Colombians with arms that continue to kill,” which reveals the need for “a double pastoral invitation: to disarmament exteriorly and within one’s heart, with the goal of peace and assuming the commitments to justice with responsibility.” This is also the social challenge “that leads us to insist in the solidarity of productive forces in the country, that they may create more opportunities for dignified employment and education for the poorest of the nation.” He also mentions the judicial challenge, as there is a need “to promote a law that fosters conditions for a true reconciliation that balances out the tendency to transform judicial measures into revenge, threat, and fresh violence, and not into a serious step towards peace for all, including enemies.”
In summarizing the challenges presented, Bishop Castro Quiroga affirmed that “there is an urgent need to face the issues of reconciliation in Colombia, of the Church’s outward communication, of ethics and its role in politics, society, and popular religion, as well as the subject of the youth in the Church today.”
On the Church-State relationship, he described it as “positive,” although he left it clear that “we had no obligation to cater to their every demand, showing our opposition to some ministerial decisions in the areas of health and education, however also revealing our willingness to generously collaborate.”
Bishop Quiroga also recalled that the Catholic Church has never remained indifferent towards those suffering from violence and insisted on the need for negotiation in the midst of conflict. “We have decided to remain firm in working towards peace. Let it never be said that while everyone was suffering from violence, the Church remained indifferent,” he said.
The address given by the President of the Bishops’ Conference ended with a prayer asking the Lord for light, “in order to continue journeying towards the future with the same spirit and apostolic determination of the past hundred years, renewing our evangelizing vigor and apostolic audacity on this anniversary.” (RG) (Agenzia Fides 3/7/2008)