Uribe’s visit with Pope will foster peace in Colombia, says Cardinal Castrillon

Vatican City, May 1, 2009 / 15:49 pm

Before meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Thursday, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia attended a Mass celebrated by the President of the Pontifical Ecclesia Dei Commission, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who said in his homily that this visit “will mean peace for Colombia.”

During the Mass celebrated at the Church of Santa Ana, the cardinal pointed out, “We are here for a visit between the President and the Pope, amidst a Eucharist in which Christ is present: Christ is the Prince of Peace. We are asking the Prince of Peace to give us that which all Colombians need.”

“I have seen that the families of soldiers, of guerrillas, of poor families, of rich families, those who are at the highest levels of thought and at the lowest levels of work, we all need and want peace,” he added.

The Colombian cardinal also underscored the advances Colombia has made in the peace process and the efforts of the Uribe government in this sense. “They are known to all, their titanic efforts in the material, economic and social development of Colombia, that despite a thousand difficulties we are on the road to peace and progress,” he said.

President Uribe thanked the cardinal for his words and visited the tomb of the late Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Truillo, who was president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.