During his visit to Bolivia, Pope Francis on Thursday apologized for the "many grave sins" committed against the native peoples of Latin America during colonial times, CBS News reported.

"I want to tell you -- I want to be very clear, as was Saint John Paul II: I humbly ask for forgiveness, not just for the offenses of the Church itself, but also for the crimes against the indigenous people during the so-called Conquest of America," the leader of the world's estimated 1.2 billion Catholics said in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, according to La Nación.

In what CBS called "one of the most significant speeches of his papacy," Francis also pleaded for a new economic world order and called on humanity to save the planet from destruction caused by unfettered greed, the network detailed.

"Let us say 'no' to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules," the pontiff urged. "That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth," he charged.

Meanwhile, the pope warned that a "new colonialism" was threatening Latin America in the form of "corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and the imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor." He called on residents to peacefully and firmly "mobilize and demand that appropriately and urgently needed measures be taken."

Francis also seemed to weigh in the longstanding Atacama border dispute between Chile and Bolivia, which resulted in the latter country losing access to the Pacific coast in the late 19th century, thus becoming South America's only landlocked nation besides Paraguay.

He urged countries to improve diplomatic ties "in order to avoid conflicts between sister peoples and advance frank and open dialogue about their problems," the pope said, according to Deutsche Welle.

"I'm thinking about the sea here," he added in an apparent reference to the dispute, on which the International Court of Justice is expected to rule by the end of the year. "Dialogue is indispensable; instead of raising walls, we need to be building bridges," Francis said.