Colombia celebrates these days for peace with “a very strong call” to create the conditions for life to respect, especially in the complex situations facing the country, said Mons. Héctor Fabio Henao, delegate of the Episcopate for Church-State Relations.
The 38th week for Peace has the motto Let us surround life with dignity and hopeand began last Monday, September 1, however, the episcopate indicated that this year the activities will run throughout the month.
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Speaking to Ewtn News, Mons. Henao explained that the motto “is a very strong call of all Colombian society so that human life is respected, to create conditions in which human life is really the center of our society and it is the fundamental value around which the entire network of the social fabric is built, which is life and that society is as such.”
In that sense, he indicated that although the week for Peace “was certainly born in the Church, he was born in the schools of the Society of Jesus,” it is expanding to other sectors as social, cultural and union organizations “to become a great activity, perhaps the most important mobilization of Colombia that is normally done around the theme of peace.”
Highlighting the importance of this initiative, Mons. Henao referred to the context of violence facing Colombia, with clashes between armed groups in various parts of the country and attacks such as the one that occurred a few days ago in Cali and Amalfi, or the attack on presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, who died after several weeks hospitalized.
The bishop’s representative said that this shows that violence is not a distant fact, but that “is closer”, as well as “the complexity of the situation and the challenges that Colombian society has (…), which will have to be able in the future of creating a territorial control plan in the hands of the State and where individually progresses towards the search for reconciliation, which is also a great challenge.”
Despite this, he highlighted the participation of the Catholic Church in the processes initiated by the Government to try to end violence.
“The Episcopal Conference of a part has been invited to participate in the peace dialogues that this government has started” with 12 negotiation tables and one more “that would be to open,” he said.
Mons. Henao explained that “at these negotiation tables, in general, there is the presence of the Episcopal Conference or the dioceses according to the extension, the coverage of the group (armed) that is negotiating.”
“Then there is positive news: there has been an effort to open many dialogue scenarios, many discussion scenarios on processes that can lead us to peace. We see that peace is not negotiated, it is not the result of a negotiation, but there the conditions are acclimatized to reduce violence and to create a climate of coexistence,” he said.
However, Mons. Henao said that Colombia is also seeing “a huge fragmentation of armed groups”, which face each other for the control of territories and illegal business income.
“Initially these groups had, say, an ideological, political background and that in some cases is preserved, but today there is a background that is very complex, which has to do with illegal income” of drug trafficking and illegal mining, he explained.
“They establish permanent struggles with each other, trying to reach a very strong territorial control, and that is the subject of concern of the Episcopal Conference,” he added.
More information about the week for peace 2025 can be found In this link.
Eduardo Berdejo
Professional in Social Communication of the National University of San Marcos in Peru, I have more than 20 years of experience in Catholic digital journalism. As part of ACI Press, I have been sent to cover the trips of Pope Francis to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, in addition to the Synod of Sinodality in the Vatican in 2023.