Vatican’s Response to Venezuela Leaves Observers Perplexed
National Catholic Register, 26 August 2024
THE MADURO REGIME HAS BEEN AN 11-YEAR NIGHTMARE FOR THE PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA.
It should have been the best week South America had in recent memory. On March 5, 2013, the death of Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan commandante of the Castro mold, was announced. A week later, the conclave began that would elect Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina on March 13 — the first-ever supreme pontiff from South America.
It turned out that Chavismo did not die with Chávez, and the successor regime of Nicolás Maduro has delivered widespread repression while pauperizing what should be a rich country. And for 11 years, the Latin American pope has been vexed by how to deal with Maduro’s Venezuela.
It has been an 11-year nightmare for the Venezuelan people — some 8 million of whom have fled the country — and an ongoing frustration for Vatican diplomacy, which has not managed to provide comfort to suffering Venezuelans nor rally effective opposition to the regime.
All of this made awkward what is usually a boring bit of diplomatic routine. On Aug. 14, Archbishop Alberto Ortega Martín, the new apostolic nuncio to Venezuela, presented his credentials to Maduro. It’s obligatory protocol. Nevertheless, scheduled just weeks after Maduro was “reelected” in what is widely regarded as a fraudulent election, it made it appear as if the Vatican sympathized with Maduro rather than the opposition. Which is exactly what Maduro wanted and the Vatican was unable to avoid.
It was never expected that Maduro’s repressive regime would permit a free election, so the opposition organized ahead of time to publicize the true results. The official, Maduro-controlled, National Electoral Council reported that Maduro got 54% of the vote. It did not publish the results from individual polling stations, as is customary. The opposition uploaded 81% of those polling station results, showing that Edmundo González, the opposition leader, won in a landslide, with 67% of the vote.
Protests against Maduro’s fraud have been violently put down by the regime, with 24 dead and nearly 2,500 arrests.
The Venezuelan bishops have called for the complete results to be released, siding with the opposition calls for the same.
Venezuela’s two cardinals issued a blistering denunciation of the Maduro regime. Cardinal Baltazar Porras, emeritus of Caracas, and Cardinal Diego Padrón, emeritus of Cumaná, accused the government of a “‘coup d’etat’ constructed ad hoc.”
“What we cannot do is become another church of silence, letting time pass in vain,” Cardinals Porras and Padrón said in their Aug. 1 statement. “We are not and cannot be neutral. It is necessary to carefully check the facts, to prophetically denounce, even at risk, injustices, and to proclaim our principles and values, accompanying the people in solidarity and pastorally, a task that is not easy but necessary.”
A few days after that statement, Pope Francis made “a heartfelt appeal to all parties to seek the truth, to exercise restraint, to avoid any kind of violence, to settle disputes through dialogue.”
That kind of “all parties” Vatican response, which has marked the Holy Father’s Venezuela policy for more than a decade, causes deep upset in Venezuela. It is not the opposition that is causing violence, and dialogue with a repressive regime looks to many like appeasement.
The Vatican has repeatedly chosen not to reinforce, or even echo, the strong statements of the Venezuelan bishops. Indeed, at many times Maduro himself has taunted the Venezuelan bishops that they should be more like Pope Francis and ease off their criticism.
Given that the Holy Father is not shy to speak frankly about those who oppose his policies, for example, on immigration or climate change, his reluctance to challenge Maduro’s claims has been interpreted in the authoritarian’s favor.
While the Vatican has disappointed the Venezuelan opposition and upset local Catholics with a “both sides” approach, Maduro has not reciprocated the gentler treatment.
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