According to a communiqué from the Press Office of the Holy See, these private talks began at 11:00 hours, local time, at the Pontifical Library of the Apostolic Palace, and lasted about 35 minutes.

Before the meeting, Petro had told reporters, “We are going to talk about peace, Colombian peace in the first place, with all that implies the role of the Catholic Church in the construction of Colombian peace up to now, since it has been exceptional.”

The president added that they would also discuss world peace “because both Colombia and the Vatican are located on earth, so we also have to talk about the problems of the world.”

The Pope and Petro had a first contact in 2015, when the latter served as mayor of Bogota, and then another meeting took place in early 2022, when he was a presidential candidate from the Colombia Humana party, but this is the first since he took office as Colombia’s president.

After concluding the audience, Francis presented Petro with papal documents, including this year’s World Day of Peace Message.

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