Pope Francis apologized for the oppression committed by the early Catholic Church to the indigenous peoples of Americas during the colonial period.
BuzzFeed News reports that on his 8-day tour in South America, the first Latin American Pope met with the people in Bolivia on Thursday and "humbly" apologized for the Catholic's "offenses."
"I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America," the Pope said.
Pope Francis told the Bolivians that the leaders of the church had acknowledged that "grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God." The previous pope, St. John Paul II has expressed his apology for the "pain and suffering" brought by the friars 500 years ago to the people in the Dominican Republic in 1992, and to the Pacific Islanders in 2001.
Aside from the historical flashback, the Pope also brought up the issue on the "genocide of Christians" in the Middle East.
"Today we are dismayed to see how in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus," he said. "In this third world war, waged piecemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end."
The Bolivians welcomed the pope during the government-declared national holiday, preparing the altar carved by the Chiquitan people especially for his visit.
Prayers were spoken in Bolivia's two indigenous languages, Guarani and Aimara in a mass attended by both students and workers.
In his sermon, the Pope also reminded the people who took a day off from work and school, as granted by the government, about the price of being unproductive.
"It is a mentality in which everything has a price, everything can be bought, everything is negotiable," he said. "This way of thinking has room only for a select few, while it discards all those who are unproductive."
Also known as "the pope of the poor", Pope Francis is set to fly to Paraguay to continue his Latin American tour.
