Colombia's priests keep paths of peace open

In 1984, the church was instrumental in the first-ever peace accord between the FARC and President Belisario Betancur. The cease-fire didn't hold, but church leaders in 1995 established the National Conciliation Commission that has served as the main conduit for all subsequent peace talks. Church leaders further served on the team that, under former President Andres Pastrana, launched the peace talks with the FARC that ultimately failed in 2002.

Fernando Giraldo, dean of political science at Bogotá's Javeriana University, says that as President Álvaro Uribe has emphasized a military solution to the conflict, rather than a negotiated one, the church's role has become even more "more important and transcendental."

Aside from mediating talks with the paramilitaries, the church forms part of the extragovernment commission charged with reaching out to the leftist ELN. And the government has no direct contact with the FARC, so the church has become the only means of communication with them.

It is trying to negotiate a swap of jailed rebels for hundreds of kidnapped Colombians, a goal urgently desired by the FARC yet basically rejected by Mr. Uribe. For scores of families, the church represents their only hope to reunite with loved ones.

Yet acting as peace brokers has a steep price. The government says that armed militants have killed 56 priests and nuns over the past two decades. The most infamous murder was of Bishop Isaias Duarte, who was gunned down in March 2002 in what investigators suspect was a FARC hit. And Pope John Paul II condemned the 2002 kidnapping of Bishop Jorge Enrique Jiménez, who was later rescued by the government.

The mounting violence against priests has caused some to suggest that the church is no longer a neutral party but acting in concert with the hard-line government. But Monsignor Jaime Prieto, bishop of Barrancabermeja in the province of Santander, illustrates the delicate balancing act that most priests have to play as de facto mediators of the Colombian conflict.

Father Prieto recently received a "pretty aggressive" e-mail from a right-wing faction that accused him of favoring the ELN. Prieto calmly responded, via e-mail, that as a chief government negotiator with the ELN, his job required him to spend a disproportionate amount of time talking to them. Prieto says he's never had an actual attempt on his life and professes not to be afraid of the risks he takes.

"My motivation is to achieve the salvation of the people, albeit with danger to my own life," he says. "It isn't easy [for the armed groups] to target priests with threats and assassination attempts, because what is least convenient for them is the creation of martyrs."

Prieto stresses that as a priest, he must act in the name of God and not at the behest of the state. "The church has to talk with everyone...." he says. "Our goal is to fight against evil, not against the evildoer.... To fight against sin, not against the sinner."

In search of peace, Prieto has hiked as long as 12 hours to reach remote guerrilla encampments and survived crossfire. He refuses bodyguards, saying it's better to sacrifice his own life than that of others. The Bible is his only traveling companion.

"One feels the fear in the moment," he says, "but it is not big enough to sacrifice the job."

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