Pope offers support to meetings aimed at peace in Colombia

(ANSA) - Vatican City, August 14 - Pope Francis on Friday urged magistrates involved in the Colombian peace process to work with "creativity and courage to find solutions to strengthen peace and justice". The pope sent a message to the 18th meeting of the Ordinary Jurisdiction involving the Colombian judiciary on the theme 'Transitional justice, peace, post-conflict'. The letter, addressed to the Secretary General of the Colombian episcopate, Mgr. José Daniel Falla Robles, was signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
    In the letter, the pope said that the theme of the meeting "is of crucial importance for the future of Colombia and, in the current globalized era, has a scope going beyond national borders".
    Colombia has been torn by civil conflicts since the early 1960s, involving various criminal and paramilitary groups as well as the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC).
    Francis said in his letter that he hoped that by finding solutions "that strengthen peace and justice, in accordance with the national and international legal systems...the meeting will help to achieve the construction of an increasingly more inclusive and stable and lasting peace".
    The pope has previously offered to try to help resolve the conflicts in Colombia.
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