By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Photographer: COURTESY | Archbishop Wenski
Polish connections in Bogota: Archbishop Thomas Wenski poses for a selfie with, from left: Ricardo Grzona, an Argentinian of Polish descent now living in Miami and working as director of the Ramon Pane Foundation, which promotes the use of Lectio Divina in parishes and families; a Polish Franciscan working in La Paz, Bolivia; and a Polish seminarian with the Neocatechumenal Way who studies in Bogota.
From Aug. 27-30, Archbishop Thomas Wenski will be among 15 cardinals, 120 bishops and 400 priests, religious and lay people participating in the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy on the American Continent, a conference taking place in Bogota, Colombia. The meeting opens Saturday, Aug. 27, with a 32-minute video address from Pope Francis. Archbishop Wenski has agreed to share his experience with Catholics in South Florida via this blog.
Friday noon, Bogota | My American Airlines flight from Miami landed in Bogota, where I will attend a special conference celebrating the Year of Mercy in Latin America.
Along with Cardinal Sean O'Malley (of Boston), Archbishop Joseph Kurtz (USCCB president), and a few other prelates from the U.S., we will join bishops from throughout the Southern Hemisphere along with dignitaries from the Holy See, including Cardinal Marc Ouellette, president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (CAL).
Our meeting comes at a particularly providential time: A peace accord was signed between the Colombian government and FARC, an insurgent Marxist group, that has been waging a civil war for more than 50 years. The Colombian people will vote in a referendum later this year whether to approve the accord or not.
Colombians desire peace, yet there are many who are quite skeptical that the accord will achieve lasting peace. Over the past 50 years, hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions displaced from their homes. Much healing is needed, and for healing to take place those guilty of the most serious violations of human rights must be held accountable. Impunity will undermine the reconciliation needed in order for the peace to endure.
At any rate, Latin America is the region with the world's greatest number of Catholics and so the importance of this meeting should not be dismissed. In May 2007, the bishops of the region met in Aparecida, Brazil, in the presence of then Pope Benedict XVI.
Aparecida’s final document, whose editor was the then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, was the precursor of the now Pope Francis' exhortation, the Joy of the Gospel. This meeting in Bogota will be perhaps the largest gathering of bishops in Latin America since Aparecida.
While this meeting is not expected to produce a document as Aparecida did, it will certainly be imbued with the spirit of Aparecida and will witness to the Joy of the Gospel as the bishops proclaim the good news of the Mercy of God.
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