The 150 year old diplomatic relationship between Venezuela and the Holy See has been marked by ups and downs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relations were first established in 1869, but they were not officially formalized until 12 years later. In 1918, the Vatican officially opened its nunciature in Caracas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there was a deep issue in the relationship until 1964: a law titled Ecclesiastical Patronage<\/em> was in force. Derived from the Spanish era, it allowed the State to control the Church, meaning it could, for example, propose or veto bishops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To abolish it, an agreement was signed in 1964 with the Holy See, guaranteeing the Church full freedom and allowing the Pope alone to choose the bishops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Diplomatic relations were relatively stable from then on. Pope St. John Paul II traveled to Venezuela twice\u2014in 1985 and 1996\u2014and through these trips offered pastoral support to both the clergy and lay faithful alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only three years after the second papal visit, in 1999, Ch\u00e1vez came to power. He encountered a Church with full institutional autonomy and one he could not control. The relation between the church and state in Venezuela began devolving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HUGO CH\u00c1VEZ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, may the devil receive you into his bosom, monsignors\u2026 I make the sign of the cross like this, in the name of us, the true Christians. You are not Christians\u2014no way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Relations worsened further when tensions arose over appointments of new cardinals. Ch\u00e1vez naturally had his own candidates in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HUGO CH\u00c1VEZ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I had my candidate\u2014and he\u2019s neither someone subordinate to me nor a Chavista\u2026 He\u2019s a monsignor who should be a Venezuelan super-cardinal. His name is Mario Moronta.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bishop Moronta maintained a friendship with Ch\u00e1vez, but he was a firm opponent of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s regime and was overall a well-respected figure in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When he died in 2025, Cardinal Porras described him as \u201ca devoted shepherd and faithful witness of the Gospel.\u201d Opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado described him as \u201ca man of unshakable faith, intelligent and kind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bishop Moronta never received the red biretta. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI instead made Jorge Urosa Savino a cardinal at his first consistory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That had been in March, just two months before Ch\u00e1vez traveled to the Vatican to meet the German Pope during his European tour. At that time, Ch\u00e1vez was entering a phase of radicalization, and the Venezuelan Church had been highly critical of his government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The simultaneous decision to elevate Urosa to the College of Cardinal upset Ch\u00e1vez even more, souring the relationship further. He was not a fan of the new cardinal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HUGO CH\u00c1VEZ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now this cardinal comes out because the squalids and the yankees send him here to try to scare the people by talking about communism\u2014that communism has arrived. Hey, he\u2019s a troglodyte.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He not only spoke out against the clergy in Venezuela, but directly targeted the validity of the Vatican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HUGO CH\u00c1VEZ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With all due respect to the State of the Vatican and the head of state of the Vatican, who is the pope\u2014who is not some ambassador of Christ on Earth, as they say\u2026 For the love of God\u2026 What is this \u2018ambassador of Christ\u2019? Christ doesn\u2019t need an ambassador. Christ is in the people.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides Ch\u00e1vez, there were also other familiar faces present: Maduro and Cilia Flores. All of this happened at the height of confrontation with the Church, around 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CILIA FLORES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are going to continue denouncing and exposing these false prophets, and it won\u2019t be with a cassock that they\u2019ll be able to deceive this people\u2014no one will ever deceive them again.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Venezuelan Bishops\u2019 Conference spoke out about Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s constitutional reforms but with great caution. The bishops warned that his plan would put the people\u2019s religious and social freedoms at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ch\u00e1vez even called for changing the 1964 Venezuela\u2013Holy See agreement. He justified the change by saying the Church had too many privileges and accused Cardinal Urosa of interfering in politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HUGO CH\u00c1VEZ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I announced\u2014and we\u2019re going to do it\u2014a review of the agreement that R\u00f3mulo Betancourt signed somewhat secretly, it wasn\u2019t properly discussed and the country didn\u2019t even find out, between the government of Venezuela and the State of the Vatican, which gives certain prerogatives to the top leadership of the Catholic Church.<\/em> But the 1964 agreement remains in force. Despite threats to change the agreement, it has never yet been altered or repealed\u2014neither after Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s death nor after Maduro came to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 150 year old diplomatic relationship between Venezuela and the Holy See has been marked by ups and downs. Relations were first established in 1869, but they were not officially formalized until 12 years later. In 1918, the Vatican officially opened its nunciature in Caracas. But there was a deep issue in the relationship until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":85841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/PxrV_hvH7Tk","video_descarga":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bclavesvenezuelasantasedeeng.mp4","international_url":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bclavesvenezuelasantasedeint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85845"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85848,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85845\/revisions\/85848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
We are not going to accept that this cardinal and these bishops, using their religious authority, trample on the dignity of the Venezuelan people.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
CA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"