Can the Pope Bridge Colombia's Divide Over FARC?

On the first day of Pope Francis’s visit in Bogota, Colombia, he was met at the airport by President Juan Manuel Santos and a swarm of followers waving white handkerchiefs. On the tarmac, the pope was handed a white dove by a teenager, the son Clara Rojas, a former vice presidential candidate who was held captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for six years. It was a deeply symbolic moment, and a theme the pope is expected to take around the country during his five-day trip, the first papal visit to Colombia in 30 years.

“The solitude of always being at loggerheads has been familiar for decades, and its smell has lingered for a hundred years,” Francis later said, referencing Colombia’s most famous author, Gabriel. “We do not want any type of violence whatsoever to restrict or destroy one more life.”