Friday, March 29, AD 2024 3:06am

Venezuela and its Bishops

 

 

I suspect that the liberation of Venezuela from the ghastly socialist regime currently in power will come shortly.  When it does, the Catholic Bishops of Venezuela may take pride in having been on the side of the people and liberty:

 

.- The Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference is calling on Nicolas Maduro’s government to allow humanitarian aid to enter the country and be peacefully distributed to people who are desperately in need of it.

The bishops of the country urged Nicolas Maduro to listen to the “cry of the people,” stressing that the humanitarian aid is responding to a “grave crisis,” and not politically motivated.

Maduro was sworn in for a second term Jan. 10, after winning a contested election in which opposition candidates were barred from running or imprisoned. Amidst the protests that followed, the head of the nation’s parliament, Juan Guaidò, declared himself interim president on Jan. 23, pledging a transitional government and free elections. The United States and more than a dozen other European and South American nations no longer recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s president.

Food and medical aid are currently being warehoused in Cúcuta, Colombia and Roraima, Brazil. While the supplies have been offered to Venezuela, Maduro has not allowed it to enter the country, claiming that there is no humanitarian crisis.

The Venezuelan National Assembly has helped organize the aid, which Guaidó says will start entering the country over the weekend, despite Maduro’s opposition.

In a Feb. 17 statement, Bishop Mario Moronta of San Cristóbal, Venezuela, urged Maduro not to continue saying “the aid is unnecessary.” The bishop said that “countless officers from the Armed Forces, and high-ranking government officials are quietly coming to many priests and laypeople, institutions in this region, so we can obtain in Cúcuta medicine for them, or their relatives, food, etc. Out of fear they’re certainly not telling you. But it’s true.”

In their statement, the Venezuelan bishops said that “the regime has the obligation to attend to the needs of the population, and therefore to facilitate the entrance and distribution of humanitarian aid, avoiding any type of repressive violence.”

They argued that requesting and receiving aid is not “any kind of treason to the homeland,” as Maduro has said, but “a moral duty that is incumbent on us all.”

They also mentioned the pastoral and social work the Church is carrying out through Caritas.

“The aid basically consists of emergency food supplies, supplements for malnourished children and the elderly, and medical supplies, mainly therapeutic,” the bishops’ conference said in its statement.

The bishops called on the National Armed Forces “to stand on the side of the people to which they belong,” noting that their members swore to uphold the Constitution and that “they serve the Venezuelan people first.”

“It is their commitment to defend them, to protect their inalienable rights and to make their human dignity shine forth. In conscience, you must not to follow orders that attack the life and safety of the population,” the bishops said.

The bishops asked the intercession of the Virgin of Coromoto, patroness of Venezuela, to accompany the people “in these times of so much hope for the country,” so that what Christ taught might become a reality: “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.”

Go here to read the rest.

 

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TomD
TomD
Sunday, February 24, AD 2019 10:10am

Here is a partial list of some of the events in Venezuela since 2011: http://todaysmartyrs.org/pdf/By%20Country/Todays%20Martyrs%20-%20Venezuela.pdf

Ranger01
Ranger01
Sunday, February 24, AD 2019 3:41pm

Who was the papal envoy representing the Vatican at Maduro’s inauguration? Does not matter. He was sent by Francis to represent Francis. Hey, no problem!

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Monday, February 25, AD 2019 6:18am

Not a peep from the Pope about the dire situation in Venezuela can be heard anywhere. At least the Bishops are on the right side.

Hugo Chavez was a two bit left wing punk who was not properly dealt with by previous Venezuelan governments. Always a suck up to Castro, he took Castro’s help to ruin Venezuela.

Brazil and Colombia will not tolerate Maduro much longer.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, February 25, AD 2019 7:48am

Hugo Chavez was a two bit left wing punk who was not properly dealt with by previous Venezuelan governments.

Agreed. He should have been given a 30 year sentence in 1992. Same deal with the copycat putschists. However, his position in Venezuelan political life was consequent to the misconceptions of the Venezuelan public after 25 years of failure theatre by Venezuela’s politicians. The historian Mark Falcoff offered in 1999 that Venezuelans were going to have to learn the hard way that prosperity is derived from ample and properly deployed human capital, not from having minerals in the ground in which you can traffic. This is what the hard way looks like.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, February 25, AD 2019 7:50am

Not a peep from the Pope about the dire situation in Venezuela can be heard anywhere. At least the Bishops are on the right side.

The thing about the Pope is, if you had a week to ponder and smacked yourself on the side of the head periodically, you might think of something admirable and agreeable about him.

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