¿Por qué somos un país con tantos sacerdotes famosos?

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The day to day is full of
urgent news, noise, polemics and fanfare.

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But for the quietness, the analysis
and what we like to call slow

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- cooking journalism are my questions,
an average rush program made by KFAM inspiring

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smiles. The history of Colombia is
full of priests of all kinds, rebels,

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politicians, entertainers, thinkers, cavemen. What has been the role of

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priests in the country. It'
s okay that there are influential cures for

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this chapter. We spoke with Father
Diego Jaramillo, President of Urbanization the Minute

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of God, with Father Daniel Saldarriaga, founder of the Food Bank of Bogotá,

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with former Father Alberto Linero and with
Father German Rodríguez, provincial of the

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Society of Jesus in Colombia, I
am Roberto Pombo. Welcome to chapter seventy

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- six of my questions. Recently, due to the randomness of Tiktok'

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s algorithm, I ended up watching
a video about Walter Otman, a hundred

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- year- old Brazilian who entered
the Gingers Records book for working eighty-

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four years in the same company.
Since he was fourteen years old he began

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working in a textile company, began
as a boarding assistant and went up.

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At present, it continues to work
of its own free will. According to

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him, Walter Otman opened quotation marks. When we do what we like,

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we don' t see time passing. I close quotes. I thought then

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that those kinds of people who think
like Mr Otman, are those who feel

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what is known as vocation. Imagine
feeling from a very young age, a

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call, a clear message of destiny
that tells us to do. I imagine

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it must be like knowing what our
role in the world is, and that

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seems unworkable to me. There is
an indeterminate amount of testing to discover the

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vocation and many are done to young
people in the last years of school so

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that they can decide what to study
international business, bachelor' s degree in

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accounting languages. I don' t
know these tests in detail. However,

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I believe that vocation has little to
do with an examination of multiple options and

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more with a practical profession or activity
that makes us feel complete. There are

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then those who have a vocation of
service and in that case they are dedicated

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to helping others, to humanitarian work, the Japanese have a term that I

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think is more fitting and is ikigai. There is no exact translation of the

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term, but we could say that
it is the conjunction of what one loves

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for what one is good, what
one needs, and for what we can

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be paid in one epheine. If
you had to make a more literal translation,

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you would say it consists of two
words, Iki, which means life

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and gai, which writes ho valor
merit and, according to Google translation is

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reason to live. It is here
that I think of stronger vocations, such

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as, for example, religious vocations, because it is one thing to feel

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in the depths of being that destiny
has a task for us, an explicit

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mission for our life, which helps
to solve an existential problem, but another

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very different is that that calling that
vocation, be it to bring to the

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world a truth, whether it be
the truth of the coran, the vague

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gita or the Bible. Perhaps that
is why the figures of the religious have

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drawn my attention and have seemed to
me to be an endangered species. With

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the crisis that religions live and what
seems to be a wave of spirituality more

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secular and away from creeds. Figures
like those of rabbis, imams or priests

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seem exotic to me. And since
Colombia is largely a country of Catholics,

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priests have had a great influence on
public life. There have been all kinds

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of politicians, thinkers, influencers and
even guerrillas. To talk about the minute

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of God, the university, the
corporation, Sir profit, of the neighborhoods

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of the television program is to talk
about Father Rafael García Herreros. His life

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is not full of extreme events,
but his social work is what made him

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so popular. One of the first
achievements was the eradication of Tuburiuos and the

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construction of housing in several neighborhoods of
Bogotá. For example, in a thousand

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nine hundred and fifty- six began
the El Minute de Dios neighborhood, an

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experience that the Inter- American Development
Bank considered to be a model of poverty

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eradication and would then be replicated in
other cities in the country. Ay of

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course it has been seen or heard
just before the broadcast of the science news

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program The Minute of God is also
thanks to him. Another work for which

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Father García Herreros is still known is
the already famous banquet of the million,

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the richest and poorest dinner in the
world, as he himself said, an

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event that began in a thousand nine
hundred and sixty- one when he invited

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donors to gather around a table and
share a dinner with a cup of calgo

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of a piece of bread. This
event has been replicated some 150 times in

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several cities in Colombia and around the
world, and the money that is raised

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is used for different social works.
But his life did have some drama in

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the midst of narcoterrorism. While the
country bled out among carlos bomb attacks on

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the media and murdered presidential candidates,
Father García Herreros was a key element for

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the release of those kidnapped, as
is the case of Baruja, Pachón and

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Francisco Santos. In addition, it
was also paramount for Pablo Escobe to surrender

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to the Government. In a thousand
nine hundred and ninety- one began a

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course of correspondence with the drug trafficker. The first letter the priest sent to

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Escobar was written in a thousand nine
hundred and ninety- one, and in

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it he offered to mediate the peace
of the country. To Urocomillas, I

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want to serve as a guarantor for
you to be respected for all your rights

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and those of your family and friends. I want you to help me find

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out what steps I should take if
you think we can meet somewhere safe for

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the two of us Tell me Cierro
Comillas said the missive Even at God'

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s Minute of April 18, ninety- one. The father sent an enigmatic

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message to Escobar as if it were
an encrypted message in the middle of the

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cold war. Auro Comillas told me
he wants to turn himself in. I

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' ve been told you want to
talk to me, omar oveñas at five

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o' clock in the afternoon,
when the sun is falling, what I

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should do. I' m told
he' s tired of his life and

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Consul South and I can' t
tell anyone or secret. However, he

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' s choking me inside. He
is told that he wants to speak with

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me a humble priest who is not
a bishop, canon or even an episcopal

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vicar. He tells me he believes
in him that he' s a man

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of his word. I asked him
if he' d say about me.

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He said no on my side.
Cierro Comillas, this closeness with brooming brought

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him problems with the directives of the
corporation minute of God according to an article

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of nine hundred ninety- seven of
the magazine Semana. The managers were concerned

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about the controversy that these approaches could
cause with a criminal like Escobar and that

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would end in the organization' s
donors withdrawing their support. According to the

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article, this controversy led them to
point out Father García Herreros de Loco and

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de cemil. Father García Herreros'
story did not end with his death.

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His legacy continued with Father Diego Jaramillo, who took his laughs in every sense

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in the program, but also in
the organization. Father Jaramillo began by replacing

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priest Garcíaerreros in some broadcasts of the
program in a thousand nine hundred sixty-

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two represented every Tuesday, but it
was only in a thousand nine hundred ninety

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- two, with the death of
García Herreros, who became the host of

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the broadcasts from Monday to Friday of
the program. But his role is not

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only the speaker of the program,
but he is the president of God'

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s Minute organization since nineteen hundred and
ninety- two. And if we talk

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about social works, I cannot leave
Father Daniel Salda Arriaga, founder and executive

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director of the Banco de Alimentos de
Bogotá, outside. In a country where,

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sadly, hunger is such a serious
problem that a person dedicates his or

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her life to feeding the most needy
is made by an exceptional person. I

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see everything that parents like García Herreros, Jaramillo and Saldarriaga and many others did,

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and I wonder should all priests take
a more active role in working with

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the most vulnerable communities? This was
told to me by Father Diego Aramillo I

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believe that all priests in Colombia should
have a very active role in favor of

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the most vulnerable communities. They could
do it out of charity, because they

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are Catholic priests and could do it
out of commitment to Colombia, because they

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are patriots. Father Rafael García Herreros
was an example in this regard. He

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spoke to the whole country thinking of
the vulnerable from the Catholic point of view

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and knowing that all of them could
have a more leading role in the life

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of the country. But he also
wanted to benefit families with less resources because

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of homelessness and also agents who had
no education, and that is why he

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began to build university and technological colleges
and a very large work in the educational

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line, that God bless you and
that this program also serve for the construction

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of a better country economically and culturally. There were also priests who became famous

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for supporting thought, not only theological, but in discussions about morals and bioethics.

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At this point I' m going
to make a confession. Then I

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' ll talk about whoever was a
close friend. You imagine a priest who

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says that Mary, the mother of
Jesus, was not a virgin and had

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more children, or who said that
celibacy in the priesthood should not be compulsory.

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This is the case of Alfonso Llano, better known as Father Llano.

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I was fortunate enough to meet him
a long time ago through my wife'

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s family and as time director,
he was a columnist for that newspaper.

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Father Villano was ahead of his time. He was never left, but he

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had all his life crinary clashes with
the Colombian ecclesiastical hierarchies, almost always ultra

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- conservative imagine, for example,
that he advanced twenty years to the debate

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of the blessing of priests to same- sex couples from the Vatican itself ordered

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him to remain silent several times because
of his positions. However, he was

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disobedient, even though that would cost
him pain. For example, in November

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of two thousand and twelve his column
The Childhood of Jesus, in which he

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refers to the book with the same
name, written by Joseph Ratzinger, was

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published in time. So, Pope
Benedict sixteen. In this text, Father

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Llano basically defends his position, he
contests that of the Pope, according to

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which the virginity of Mary, mother
of Jesus, is theological, but not

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human. This in part was one
of the things Father Llano believed in on

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the ascending or historical path, according
to which Jesus was a human. Like

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us, God does his son by
virtue of the merits of his perfection as

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a human being, and he was
conceived by Mary and Joseph, who had

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a large family. After the text
was published, I received the news that

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the father could not republish anything,
to which I responded. Of course,

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that prohibition covered the father for being
a soldier of the company, but not

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me or the newspaper, because in
our case we were governed by a different

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nest of the national Constitution. Father
Llano' s communication told Bro Comillas.

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Father Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General of
the Society of Jesus, has ordered Father

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Alfonso Llano to terminate his apostolic vocation
as a writer, deprives him of his

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freedom of speech and demands that he
not say goodbye and that he guard absolute

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silence. Cierlo Comillas, that column
cost him the scapegoat of several superiors in

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the Church, like that of Monsignor
José Daniel Falla, Secretary General of the

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Episcopal Conference, who told the newspaper
the time that Auro Comillas, the Father

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has no longer lost the horizon and
left aside the faith that is proclaimed in

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the Church from its beginnings by denying
the virginity of María Cierro Comillas Monsignor José

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Miguel Gómez, bishop of the diocese
of Lebanon, said that the father had

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no longer committed the caronic crime of
energy by questioning an innegotiable dogma of the

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clergy and warned that it was frankly
heretical to claim that Mary was not a

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virgin. This time he had to
get away from his column in the paper,

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but he came back. I was
fortunate enough to write the foreword for

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his posthumous book I am free,
in which he gathers his experiences as a

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Jesuit and his reflections on Jesus.
When he was going to publish the book,

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he asked me what you' re
going to do. In case my

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superiors go against me for the thesis
I' m raising, I answered him.

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I' ll help by picking up
firewood fences to set free the bonfire

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in which they' re going to
burn it in Plaza de Bolívar. His

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response was the one expected of a
man like him, a laugh. Father

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Llano was not only this avant-
garde and humanist thinker as if it were

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not enough, but he also founded
and led the Bioethics Commission of Javeriana University.

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Father Llano died in two thousand and
twenty and, like many priests people

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of quiet lives, had a long
life. One of its last columns dedicated

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it to its ninety- five years
of life and closed it with a paragraph

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that I want to remember today Uro
Comillas lit my light and my lamp ninety

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- five years ago and it continues
to shine without being able to take a

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break, because it would be a
final point. Alive and alive, happy

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my existence. I live and I
live happily. My ninety- five birthday.

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From here I embrace the totality of
my existence as a unit that flows

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and passes without interruption. Live life. My ninety- five years have been

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alive, I close quotes. At
a time like now, when there seems

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to be a crisis of faith,
such priests are lacking in the Church.

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I pass on the question to Father
Germán Rodríguez, provincial of the company of

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Jesus in Colombia. I think it
is not a question of a priest who

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is rebellious, but priests who have
a prophetic function within the Church and who

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will always be welcomed. These expressions
that invite the Church to advance in an

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understanding, to make more faith,
the experience of faith to the realities that

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the world lives. It seems to
me that the father was no longer always

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a priest, faithful obedient, but
that he had questions, questions how to

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approach the mystery of faith, which
in some way challenged the more traditional and

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more ordinary positions in the Church.
I believe that these contributions, like the

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plain Father, are necessary and important
within the community of the Church and,

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obviously, that these positions must help
the people of God to discern them in

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order to discover in them what is
of value, of importance, of enrichment

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for our life of faith and also
to recognize what may suddenly, in some

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moments, make difficulty or problem for
that same experience of faith. The prophetic

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voices within the Church are always welcome
and sometimes, even though they contradict the

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official positions of the Church a little
bit, it helps us all to have

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approaches and questions that help believers bring
the life of faith closer to their own

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experience in the world today. And
if controversial priests speak, there was one

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that had already become a man in
history and that generates mixed feelings, priest

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Camilo Torres. Thinking of his figure, it occurs to me that it seems

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a more radical and violent version of
the mixture between Father García Erros and Father

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Llano, because if there are two
things of which the priest Camilo Torres is

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referent it is of rebellion in the
Church and of the work with the communities.

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To say, anything from priest Camilo
is redundant. But in case you

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don' t hear the name or
think it was just a guerrilla. I

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' ll give you a summary.
The life of Camilo Torres Restrepo, a

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priest of rebellious spirit and a burning
passion for social justice seems fiction and I

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would need several chapters to honor his
story. He was the founder of the

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Faculty of Sociology of the National University. But the heart of this priest was

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not alone in the altars, in
the books, or in the classrooms.

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Also aunt for the underprivileged and the
oppressed. He was also the founder of

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the university movement, which served as
a germin for the creation of communal action

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boards. Then came a crucial moment. He had to choose between the clergy

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and their revolutionary thinking the decision we
already know, he left the cassock and

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joined the guerrillas of the LLN National
Liberation Army. Then he earned the nickname

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of the guerrilla priest. However,
his life in hiding did not last long

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and his fate sealed his in his
rs the first armed confrontation against troops of

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the Fifth Brigade of Bucaramanga. Curé
Camilo fell down in his land in San

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Vicente de Chucurí. The image of
the priest Camilo Torres remains very important,

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not only as a political figure,
but academic, dissocial. And more recently,

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another priest who has made an important
part of the country' s political

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life is Father Francis de ru,
a respected and recognized religious on peace-

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building issues. If I describe your
career it would be a very long list,

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but I will highlight the most important
thing. In a thousand nine hundred

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and ninety- five he created the
Magdalena Medio Development and Peace Program, a

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kind of peace laboratory to finance coexistence
and sustainable development initiatives in an area of

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thirty- zero kilometers in twenty-
nine rural municipalities of Santander, Bolívar César

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de Antioch, to a region particularly
plagued by violence. That' s just

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one of three projects by Father de
rub who won the National Peace Prize in

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two thousand eighteen. It was that
the figure of the father of a greater

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leap in the political scene was possessed
as a member and president of the Truth

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Commission, his contribution to the country
has been immense and if you ever ask

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me for a cerebre phrase of his, I still have fixed in the memory

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that he pronounced at the end of
the presentation of the final report of the

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Commission, of the truth in which
he asked all Colombians the most uncomfortable questions

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that we had asked ourselves. I
open Comillas, what did the religious leaders

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and besides the pastors and women of
faith who even laid down their lives to

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accompany and denounce, what did other
bishops and priests and religious communities and ministers

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do, what did the educators do, what do the judges and prosecutors say

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that let impunity accumulate, what role
did opinion makers and the media play?

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I close Comillas and, in the
end, the most important question, how

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dare we let it happen and how
dare we allow it to continue and we

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cannot talk about political priests and peace
without referring to a recent case. An

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incorrigible Monsignor Darío de Jesús Monsalve was
archbishop of Cali for thirteen years in which

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he was active in political and peace
scenarios, such as his activism for the

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yes in the plebiscite for peace,
his sweetness of the assassinations of peace signatories,

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the public disapproval by the Apostolic Annunciation
and Episcopal Conference, for his demands

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to the then President Duque his role
in the social outbreak in Cali, when

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he asked respect for the protests of
the indigenous Taminga protesters and asked to open

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channels of dialogue. His political stances
caused controversy several times. We are a

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country in which the Catholic Church has
more presence in the innermost communities than the

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State itself. Think for a moment
at the head of any municipality of Colombia

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in its center and you will realize
that there will always be a park surrounded

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by the building of the Mayor,
a police station and a church. It

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is obvious that, while the Church
and the State have long been separated,

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the flirtations between the two are still
quite strong. The historian and teacher José

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David Cortés Guerrero wrote in two thousand
nineteen the article Religion in the construction of

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the Colombian State, in which he
recalls how the Church has participated in Colombian

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politics. In every way, just
a piece of that story is told by

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Professor Cortes in his text. Auro
Comillas overcome bipartisan violence. In the 1960s,

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a section of the church, influenced
by liberation theology, questioned the social

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problems that the country was going through. Religious men and women did so without

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taking up arms, such as the
Golconda group. Others left their habits and

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joined the guerrillas. This is the
case of Camilo Torres, who was part

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of the National Liberation Army, which
was also coincidentally founded by a priest.

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Of course, the traditional political elite
and ecclesiastical hierarchy criticized this leaning towards the

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left of some members of the Comillas
church. However, not all priests who

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have participated in politics have been notable. That is the case of Bernardo Holus,

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who was the first mayor of Barranquilla
by popular election and repeated in nineteen

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hundred and ninety- eight. However, in two thousand thirteen he was sentenced

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to ten years in prison for committing
irregularities in the purchase of two lots for

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the construction of twenty- five zero
housing units of social interest. I looked

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for Father Daniel Salda Arriaga, founder
of the Bogotá Food Bank, and asked

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him what is the Church' s
current role in politics. This I was

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told I consider that the role of
the Church today is to be the voice

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of those who have no voice.
We do not occupy a place in public

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life as politicians, nor are we
pretending politicians, but we do have to

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be attentive to serve justice, to
serve the truth, to be in the

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midst of our communities, to motivate
those who can exercise the positions or offices

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of the political, so that there
are actually more people with principles and Christian

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values who intervene and serve a more
just society, a more fraternal society,

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a society that respects and cares for
the common house and a society where the

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reality of poverty and the reality of
hunger do not return to our landscape.

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I think that we are living a
time in which, very close to us,

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there are many talented people waiting to
have the opportunity to exercise in politics,

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a trade, to exercise in the
midst of society, a leadership.

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And with all these, especially young
people, we have a very big commitment

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to accompany and motivate. Finally,
there is a priest who has done his

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job differently. If, on the
one hand, the abbey revolutionaries, academics

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and peace managers, there is one
who has brought his vocation to the masses

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using social networks and the media.
Who I' m talking about technically is

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no longer a priest, but it' s inevitable to see it this way.

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And if I call him Alberto Linero, it might sound like him.

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But if I tell Father Linero,
you know who I' m talking about.

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He has had spaces on national television, on radio, published countless books

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and has become a kind of influencer
on his social networks. Although he hung

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the cassocks thousand eighteen which was a
national news, because he was sucked out

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of solitude. However, the former
parent is still a kind of spiritual guide.

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Now he looks more smiling than before, something I never thought I'

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d say about someone as grieving as
him. And, of course, we

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cannot leave out a father who has
become famous for his appearance on television.

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The passage of Jesus Herrador Fuela,
better known as Father Chucho jumped to fame

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with his healing program for the soul, but in time he gained the affection

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of the parishioners. He has not
been without controversy, like when he had

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a fight with Kenney' s local
mayor for his outdoor masses in the Marseilles

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neighborhood or more recently for being in
Israel with several parishioners on a tour of

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the Holy Land as the war progressed. Father Chucho is so famous that his

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Instagram account has about 120 zero followers, and his YouTube channel, where he

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broadcasts his Masses every day at five
in the morning, has over three hundred

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zero subscribers. I see these success
stories, and I wonder what social networks

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are to bring in more parishioners.
I looked for Father Alberto Olinero to answer

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this question and this he said yes
to me. I am sure that social

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networks are a timely space to meet
people and make them the existential proposal of

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Jesus of Nazareth. Let us not
forget that Paul speaks to the Greeks there

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in the Areopagus, which is a
totally new space for them. But he

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understands that this is where he should
talk about the Gospel, because that is

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where people are now, what is
important is that it is done in the

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language and dynamics of social networks.
We cannot pretend that the language of the

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pulpit, which has very particular characteristics, succeeds in the middle of x,

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or, of Facebook or of any
of today' s networks. It is

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necessary to adapt without losing the essential, without losing the doctrinal, but having

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an inclusive language, a language that
answers the questions that human beings today have.

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I believe that the Church has to
make a presence on social networks,

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because it is there that believers,
parishioners, especially young people, can be

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found, especially those who are no
longer so linked to the physical space,

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but to the digital space. So, my answer is yes, the main

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question in this chapter could be answered
very easily. Colombia has so many famous

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priests, because we are a Catholic
and conservative country. However, I choose

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to give you another explanation. This
is because many of them chose to leave

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their churches and parishes to speak and
approach the community. They decided to feel

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their vocation to the limit. Priests
are not very different from us. Civilians

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have a life and passions, only
that their vocation is concentrated in me.

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For those who are not spiritual believers, talking about a call or a vocation

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may sound like a perch. However, I think this ikigai we all feel

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differently, but no matter how.
The important thing is to respond to that

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call by accepting it. I am
Roberto Pombo, esteemed listeners in your hands,

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I deliver chapter seventy- six of
my questions that already happened and the

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next one that comes from this moment. This chapter of my questions is available

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on all podcast platforms. This episode
was made possible by Kafam, inspiring Smiles.

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Dirección Roberto Pombo, Producción General,
juan Abel Gutiérrez, Editorial Advisor Daniel

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San Pero Espina scripts juan Abel Gutiérrez
and Johnny Rodríguez. Field production Marcela Salazar

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and Lucía Beltrán. Post- production
of audio Carlos Bernar