But nudging Colombians to accept the deal that ended the half-century war, signed last year between the government and the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, may prove a lasting challenge for the pope. The clerics were just two of some 220,000 people killed during the fighting as guerrilla groups battled the government and paramilitary fighters in a conflict that displaced more than six million people.

Last year, when President Juan Manuel Santos put peace accords with the rebels up to a popular vote, Colombians rejected the deal by a narrow margin, with many feeling the fighters got off too easily. The agreement was modified slightly and then passed through Congress. Francis’ six-day visit is widely seen as an attempt to use the moral authority of the Vatican to temper lingering resentment.

Father Ramírez and Bishop Jaramillo were two of the war’s most high-profile victims, as clergymen who found themselves in the cross hairs of politics. Their stories reflect the trajectory of the 52-year war, which began as political violence between liberals and conservatives, then spiraled into the hands of armed Marxists, kidnappers and drug runners.

Father Ramírez came of age during the run-up to the war, when the country’s political factions struggled for control. In 1948, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the presidential candidate of the Colombian Liberal Party, was assassinated in Bogotá, an event that set off riots there and kicked off a period of unrest known as “the Violence.”

Father Ramírez was one of the first victims. In the town of Armero, a mob broke into the church where he had taken cover, accusing him of hiding weapons for the conservative faction. He was taken to the town’s square, where he was killed with a machete.