_WORLD WATCH______________________________
____________________ Columbia ________________

Messages to rebels
Pleas, demands, and resistance
Catholic Church leaders in Colombia have sent several different sorts of messages to rebel leaders in their country recently.

The president of the Colombian bishops’ conference issued a plea based on compassion: a request for guerrilla leaders to release a hostage who is the father of a dying child. Archbishop Alberto Giraldo Jaramillo made his public plea to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), on behalf of 12-year-old Andres Felipe Perez, who has terminal cancer. The boy has gained widespread public attention in Colombia since he indicated that his fondest wish for “my last Christmas on earth” was to see his father, Jose Norberto Perez, a police officer who was kidnapped by FARC in March of last year.

“On behalf of my fellow brother bishops, I ask—I demand—for FARC to let Perez go free, for a humanitarian reason that must be above any political calculation,” said Archbishop Giraldo in a radio message issued by radio. “This case is just the tragedy of a dying boy and his father; it is completely above any political or ideological calculation.”

The case of Andres Felipe Perez has become a crucial one for FARC, since Colombian public opinion has become markedly hostile toward the guerrilla organization. Early in December, thousands of students of Bogota University —where left-wing organizations usually find support for the guerrilla cause—demonstrated against FARC. At the front of the university, a large banner was unfurled reading: “If the revolution means the death of piety and solidarity, what sense does it makes to be a revolutionary?”

Cardinal Pedro Rubiano Sáenz told Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary leaders that the sort of “Christmas truce” that has been negotiated between government and paramilitary leaders in past years is not an adequate step to end the country’s long civil war.

Such a truce, the cardinal said, “is not enough to respond to the national cry for peace.” At a Mass for peace celebrated at Bogota’s Cathedral on December 10, Cardinal Rubiano said, “it is time for the armed groups to stop cheating Colombians and to commit to peace once and for all.”

“A Christmas truce is something Colombians want badly,” the cardinal conceded. “But it is certainly not enough to respond to the national cry for peace: violence can’t go on forever in our country.” The Archbishop of Bogota also said in his homily that “breaking out of the circle of hate, revenge, and aggression is not only a demand from the Colombian people, but also a demand from God.”

In a different sort of message to the rebels, the pastor of the town of Caldono, in the northern Colombian region of Cauca, has become a national hero after preventing left-wing rebels from taking over the town by organizing a “peaceful resistance.”

After being warned that a group of some 30 members of FARC were approaching, Father Osorio Montoya grabbed the parish loudspeaker and called people into the town square. There they waited for the rebels behind a pyre of burning tires, singing hymns.

When the commander of the FARC squadron learned of the people’s posture, he decided not to enter Caldono.

“This act was not bravado or a provocation of the rebels,” Father Montoya told Radio Caracol. “It was just an act of decency and self-esteem.”

Morning-after pill approved . . .
. . . despite abortion ban
Colombia’s Health Ministry has approved the sale of the abortifacient “morning-after” pill. “It is a tool that is cheap and safe,” said acting Minister of Health Miguel Rueda, in a television interview. The Catholic Church condemned the move, reminding politicians that taking the pill after intercourse is “direct abortion.”

In July the Catholic Church warned doctors, medical practitioners, and judges who participate in procuring abortion that they may face excommunication. In a letter signed by all Colombian Catholic bishops, Colombians were called to practice conscientious objection and refuse to participate in the “abominable crime of abortion.” In June, the Colombian Supreme Court ruled that abortion “in those cases where the woman has been a victim of violence, rape, or non-consensual artificial insemination” is not punishable by prison. The bishops said they would take steps to have the new law declared unconstitutional, in light of the country’s traditional protection of all human life.

Back to Catholic World Report January 2002 Table of Contents