In Venezuela, Détente Is Confirmed Between the Church and State

The Metropolitan Archbishop of Caracas, capital of Venezuela, has had a successor since June 28, 2024. It has been more than five years since Cardinal Baltazar Porras sent his letter of resignation to Pope Francis, after reaching the age of 75 on October 10, 2019.

It must be said that relations between the Church and President Nicolás Maduro had noticeably deteriorated since the country’s bishops—supported by the Vatican—had declared the head of state’s second term “illegitimate,” with one Bishop denouncing the “repression and violence by state security forces and armed groups,” La Croix reported in 2019.

In July 2021, the President described a letter from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See and former Nuncio to Caracas, as a “compendium of hatred.” The letter had “called for local Venezuelan businesses to have serious negotiations in the country” and the Cardinal had said that it is “important that civil society is also a protagonist in the solution of the crisis in this beloved country,” La Croix again reports.

Vatican diplomacy was forced to change its methods: in order to avoid a scenario like the one in Nicaragua, where direct confrontation between Church and State results in a worsening of living conditions for the faithful there, Rome decided to adopt an attitude of “positive neutrality” towards the Bolivarian power.

A first sign of détente came from the Miraflores Palace on May 14, 2024: a new Nuncio was appointed to Venezuela, in the person of Archbishop Alberto Ortega Martín, as FSSPX.News reported. It only took a few weeks for this seasoned diplomat, recognized for his great experience, to unblock the cases of several high-profile episcopal appointments.

Vida Nueva describes the new bishops. Thus, Bishop Raúl Biord, a Salesian religious who until recently was Bishop of La Guaira, where he had been assigned in November 2013, has been appointed the new Archbishop of Caracas. Bishop Jesús González de Zárate Salas was appointed Archbishop of Valencia, and Bishop Polito Rodríguez Méndez was appointed Archbishop of Barquisimeto: three moderate figures of the episcopate.

Nicolás Maduro’s gesture of peace is not without ulterior motives, since he intervened on the eve of the presidential election: on July 28 this year, Venezuelans—who have voted electronically since 2004—will have to decide the future of the current president, while the polls give a notable advantage to Edmundo González Urrutia, the head of state’s opponent.

“Statistically everyone knows, including the government, that this election is lost for the current president,” Benigno Alarcon, Director of the Center for Political and Governmental Studies at Andrés Bello Catholic University, believes, quoted by Le Figaro.

In other words, the votes of the Catholic electorate will weigh heavily in the balance, in a country where more than 90% of inhabitants declare that they belong to the Church.