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Washington D.C., Jul 26, 2017 / 10:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On one of the hottest days of the year, more than 1,300 young people from around the country gathered together for WYD Unite, bringing together alumni of former World Youth Days as well as pilgrims from at least 52 Catholic dioceses around the nations.

They gathered for the all-day event at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, named for the Pope who in 1984 began the World Youth Day celebrations to bring together millions of young people from around the globe to share and grow in their Catholic faith. From their starting place in Rome, World Youth Days have traveled across the world to six continents, most recently in 2016 to Pope John Paul II’s homeland of Poland.

The smaller United States gathering focused upon the theme, “The Mighty Has Done Great Things for Me and Holy is His Name.” The gathering explored the radical “Yes” Mary gave at the Annunciation, as well as gratitude for how God has acted in our lives.

Throughout the day, pilgrims toured the exhibits of the National Shrine, and had opportunities for Reconciliation and spiritual direction. The day also featured performances by Tony Melendez and Audrey Assad. Melendez is a master guitarist who was born without arms, but learned to play guitar using his feet. Previously he has performed before Saint Pope John Paul II in 1987. Assad, a daughter of a Syrian Christian refugee, is an acclaimed musician and songwriter who also often speaks on behalf of persecuted Christians of the Middle East.

Childcare and children’s catechesis was provided both by the event and by the Sister Servants of the Lord.

The first keynote message of the day was given by Bishop-elect Nelson Perez, who will soon take over the Diocese of Cleveland. He reminded attendees that “God meets us where we are in our brokenness, lowliness.”

While encounter with Christ may inspire a person to be kind or compassionate or have a loving family, these traits are not a mark of a Christian themselves, he continued. Instead, the Christian holds to the truth that Jesus “moved, He rose from the dead, and He continues to move in us and through us and about us.”

Bishop-elect Perez also urged the young Christians present to embrace gratitude for all that God has given, and to view one’s life as not only a gift but a tool for God to use. He recalled a personal story of a young woman he had spoken to rudely. Three years later, the bishop said, as the same young woman lay on her deathbed, she told Bishop-elect Perez it was the closest she had ever felt to God.

“Never underestimate the power of God’s spirit working in you, through you and despite you, and most of the time unbeknownst to you and to me,” the bishop reflected.

Later, the participants attended Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., told attendees to bring their neighbors and peers “into the ongoing mission of the Church.” He warned the youth not to be discouraged by the threat of modern secularism, instead placing hope in and offering a witness of God’s love.

Returning in a procession to the Saint John Paul II Shrine, participants were joined by an image of “Our Lady Undoer of Knots,” which was present for the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and blessed by the Pope during his visit there.

A second keynote was then delivered by Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Conn.

Bishop Caggiano focused on the radical message of the Annunciation and Mary’s acceptance of God’s plan. “It was her ‘yes’ that allowed ourselves to come here, and her ‘yes’ that enabled us to say yes to her Son,” he said.

He challenged the young people to accept God’s love of them, but also noted that that acceptance of God’s love compels us to bring that love “to everyone you and I meet.”

“Life will give you a thousand reasons to doubt God’s love,” he warned the youth, but to be missionary disciples, Christians need to “say yes to the fact that Jesus is extending his hand to us in friendship.”

After the keynote, the night ended with Eucharistic Adoration and prayer, accompanied by music.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/The Crosiers

By Barbara J. Fraser

LIMA, Peru (CNS) -- When Pope Francis visits Colombia in September, he will take his message of mercy and reconciliation to Cartagena, a city that still bears scars of its painful history as a slave port. And he will walk the streets where another Jesuit, St. Peter Claver, put that message into practice four centuries ago.

Canonized in 1888, St. Peter Claver is now considered the patron saint of human rights in Colombia. But although the country abolished slavery in 1851 and passed a law prohibiting discrimination in 1993, racism persists.

Many Afro-Colombians in Cartagena, the "children of children of children of slaves ... often remain marginalized, abandoned by the government," said Father Jorge Hernandez, who works with Afro-Colombian communities in and around the city. "In some neighborhoods, people don't have running water. Inhumanity has become natural."

The same is true in other Latin American countries. Although about half the population of Brazil is of African descent, Afro-Brazilians make up a disproportionate share of the poor population, according to the 2010 census. Their salaries averaged one-half to one-third those of white Brazilians.

On his last day in Colombia, Sept. 10, Pope Francis will pray the Angelus outside of the sanctuary of St. Peter Claver. The building where the missionary welcomed slaves, and which now houses the saint's relics, has also served as a school and a hospital.

After private prayer time in the sanctuary, the pontiff will meet with fellow Jesuits.

Some people wonder if Pope Francis will ask forgiveness for the church's long acceptance of the slave trade in the Americas. Father Hernandez said he hopes the pope will speak out against modern forms of slavery, including human trafficking and slavery to money and a consumer society.

The pope's visit to Cartagena will quietly highlight the persistent inequality in Latin America, which has some of the highest income disparities in the world. Tourists flock to the Caribbean city's beach resorts, which contrast sharply with the poverty in which most of the city's large Afro-Colombian population still lives, said Father Carlos Eduardo Correa, provincial superior of the Jesuits in Colombia.

"In Colombia, there are still many human rights violations, especially of Afro-Colombian, indigenous and poor communities, particularly in cultural, economic, social and environmental rights, and rights to education, health and work," Father Correa said.

By the time the young Peter Claver arrived in Cartagena from Spain in 1610, the slave trade was already booming. More than 78,000 African slaves arrived between 1570 and 1640 -- some 10,000 a year. By some accounts, slaves made up half the population of Cartagena at the time.

After five years of studies in Bogota, he returned to Cartagena, where he was ordained in 1616. Referring to himself as "the slave of slaves," he joined another Jesuit, Father Alonso de Sandoval, who was outspoken about the injustice of slavery, and continued that ministry after his companion was transferred to Peru in 1617.

At a time when the Catholic Church did not speak out against enslavement of Africans in the Spanish colonies, and when even some Jesuit superiors criticized his ministry, Father Claver cajoled alms from wealthy residents of the city and used them to buy food and medicine.

He met the traffickers' ships at the port, going first to aid children and the sick with the help of slaves he knew in Cartagena, who spoke the new arrivals' languages. His labor of humanitarian care and catechesis continued in the squalid houses where traders housed the slaves until they were sold or shipped to another port.

Pope Francis' visit to the place where St. Peter Claver lived, worked and finally died in 1654, after suffering the same diseases that afflicted the people to whom he ministered, will be a reminder that human rights are crucial for the country's peace process after decades of civil war.

Peace and reconciliation, Father Correa said, will be possible "only when people recognize every person's dignity and every person's importance as a human being, as St. Peter Claver did."

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Fraser covers Latin American issues for Catholic News Service and will travel to Colombia for the pope's visit. Follow her on Twitter: @Barbara_Fraser.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Ricardo Maldonado Rozo, EPA

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' decree to beatify two Colombian martyrs from two troubled eras in the South American country's history underscores his call for courageous witness amid violence and persecution.

"What does the church need today?" the pope asked earlier this year at an evening prayer service honoring Christians killed under Nazism, communism, dictatorships and terrorism.

"Martyrs and witnesses, those everyday saints, those saints of an ordinary life lived with coherence. But it also needs those who have the courage to accept the grace of being witnesses to the end, to the point of death," he said.

The lives of Bishop Jesus Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve of Arauca, who was murdered by Colombian Marxist guerrillas in 1989, and Father Pedro Maria Ramirez, who was killed at the start of the Colombian civil war in 1948, seemingly fit the pope's description.

Their beatification, which will take place during the pope's visit to Colombia Sept. 6-10, comes at a time when the nation focuses on reconciliation after decades of conflict that saw the deaths of more than 200,000 people.

Bishop Jaramillo was among the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives caught in the crossfire of Colombia's 52-year civil war between government forces and guerrilla groups.

Born in Santo Domingo, Colombia, in 1916, he entered the Xaverian Missionaries and was ordained Sept. 1, 1940. In 1984, St. John Paul II appointed him as the first bishop of the Diocese of Arauca.

It was there where he spoke out not only against the atrocities committed by the National Liberation Army -- known by the Spanish acronym ELN -- but also denounced the climate of fear among the people he served.

"We are afraid of the armed groups. We all are afraid, we all remain silent because of fear. And worst of all, my brothers and sisters, we kill out of fear," he said in an undated recorded homily. "Colombia's great sickness is called fear. Fear kills us all."

It was his words of encouragement against violence that prompted the ELN to order his kidnapping Oct. 2, 1989, while visiting local parishes. According to his biography, one of his parish priests, Father Jose Munoz Pareja, refused to leave his side.

However, after praying together and absolving each other's sins, Bishop Jaramillo told Father Munoz to leave out of obedience. As the priest walked away, he heard the bishop tell his captors, "I'll speak to whoever you want me to speak to, but please don't do anything to my child."

Despite assurances from the captors that no harm would come to the bishop, Father Munoz found his body the next day, lying on his back in the form of a cross. Bishop Jaramillo was shot twice in the head with an assault rifle.

For his courage and witness, the faithful of Arauca honored the bishop with a title engraved on his tombstone that reads, "prophet and martyr of peace."

Forty years before Bishop Jaramillo's martyrdom, a local priest in Armero -- located roughly 200 miles south of Medellin -- quickly penned his last will and testament.

"I want to die for Christ and the faith," he wrote, before an angry mob dragged him outside, lynched him and butchered his body with machetes.

The martyrdom of Father Pedro Maria Ramirez came during another difficult period in Colombia's history, when escalating tensions between liberals and conservatives boiled over following the death of Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitan.

Gaitan's death sparked a 10-year civil war known in Colombia as "La Violencia" ("The Violence"). It also gave rise to the left-leaning guerrilla groups that battled against the government in the 20th century.

Violent Liberal Party members in Armero revolted against Gaitan's assassination and accused the Catholic Church of colluding with the Conservative Party due to the church's apparent support and continued calls for nonviolence.

On April 9, 1948, an angry mob attempted to arrest Father Ramirez and destroyed church property as well as a nearby convent. He was able to escape with the help of a nun, Sister Miguelina.

However, despite appeals from parishioners and family members to leave the town, Father Ramirez refused and, the following day, continued his work by celebrating Mass, hearing a sick patient's confession at a hospital and visiting prisoners.

Upon his return, he gave the last consecrated hosts remaining in the tabernacle to the nuns, keeping one for himself. He then remained in the convent to write his last will and testament as the sound of the returning mob could be heard approaching.

After thanking his bishop for allowing him to become a "priest of God," Father Ramirez wrote words of encouragement to his family and his flock.

"To my family, I say that I will be the first in the example that they must follow: to die for Christ. To all, with special affection, I will look after you from heaven," he wrote.

Bishop Fabio Duque of Garzon, the diocese where Father Ramirez served, said that, following his violent death, the mob decapitated him and "played with his body and his head" before his remains were rescued from further desecration.

"The ones who rescued his body were the prostitutes, who ferociously guarded the cemetery so that (the mob) wouldn't continue mistreating it," Bishop Duque said in a July 8 interview with the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.

Even after his death April 10, 1948, Father Ramirez continued to be slandered and accused of calling for violence against Liberal Party members.

On June 8, Gloria Gaitan, daughter of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, wrote a letter to Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio to Colombia, asking the pope reconsider his decision.

Gloria Gaitan claimed many priests during that time, including Father Ramirez, used the pulpit to "denigrate and slanderously vilify" her father's candidacy, leading to his death.

"(Father Ramirez) was unfortunately lynched for having denied Christ's message," she wrote.

However, Vicente Silva Vargas, a journalist and author of an upcoming biography on Father Ramirez, said that, even after death, the priest was blamed for various occurrences in a smear campaign to justify his murder.

Most notably, a phrase erroneously attributed to him was believed to be a curse that caused the explosion of a nearby volcano in 1985 that claimed the lives of more than 25,000 people.

Silva told El Tiempo that the phrase, "In Armero, no stone will remain overturned," was said by the archbishop of Ibague, Colombia, a neighboring diocese; the archbishop shared the slain priest's name: Pedro Maria.

Bishop Duque said that, contrary to the false accusations, Father Ramirez remained an example of holiness and heroic virtue until his final breath.

"The clearest expression of his holiness is that, at the moment of his death, he forgave those who killed him," he said.

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Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.

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