Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bogotà (Agenzia Fides) – On 3 March the Forum on “John Paul II and his mark on Colombia 25 years later” was held in Bogotà, to remember the significance and teachings from the Papal Visit to Colombia from 1 to 7 July 1986. According to the Episcopal Conference of Colombia's communication to Fides, the Forum was attended by the President of the Republic of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos Calderon, the Apostolic Nuncio, Mons. Aldo Cavalli, the Chancellor Maria Angela Holguin and former President Belisario Betancourt, among various other personalities.
President Santos Calderon spoke of the sentiments and devotion to Pope John Paul II expressed by the Colombian people for a week, after waiting 18 years since the previous Papal Visit, that of Pope Paul VI who had in fact visited Colombia in 1968. The President recalled the “sense of peace that the Pope's presence emitted, and that could be transmitted to the Colombian people in that wonderful week,” during which he visited several cities in Colombia: Bogotà, Barranquilla, Medellín, Cali, Tumaco, Popayán and Chiquinquirá.
Santos said that John Paul II “left an indelible and beautiful mark on the soul of Colombia.... We received his word of healing”, after the dramatic events that took place in Colombia during that time, such as the action by guerrillas in the courthouse and the landslide caused by the volcano Nevado del Ruiz, which destroyed the city of Armero, causing thousands of deaths.
The Forum was organised by the Embassy of Colombia to the Holy See, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Revel Foundation, as part of a series of events for the 25th anniversary of the Visit of Pope John Paul II to Colombia, next of which is his Beatification. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 04/03/2011)
