The Struggle Between Church and State Intensifies in Venezuela

They accuse the president of establishing a “totalitarian, impoverishing, personally enriching, and centralized political project” in the country.

The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference published a declaration on January 12, 2018. Their judgment is final; if the political situation does not evolve, there are only two possibilities: “a definitive loss of freedom, with all that this entails, or acts of resistance and rebellion against the usurping power”.

The Church has considerable influence in Venezuela, where nearly 80% of the population declares itself Catholic. The episcopate is currently standing together against the government.

President Maduro responded on January 15 by calling the bishops “bandits” and “devils in cassocks” before the Constituent Assembly.

In a press conference that same day, one of the bishops who is more particularly targeted by the government, Bishop Antonio López Castillo, said he has the support of Pope Francis.

Since the socialist president Nicolas Maduro came into power in 2013, the situation in the country has evolved into a chaos in which it is impossible for families to provide normal supplies for themselves in the country with the largest oil reserves in the world.