Latin American Church challenges Maduro, expresses solidarity to Venezuelans

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – Since the opposition challenged the announcement of the Venezuelan electoral authority that President Nicolas Maduro obtained a majority of votes and won another term in the July 28 elections, several nations and international institutions have been demanding that his government respects the voters’ will.

That’s the case with a number of episcopal conferences all across Latin America, which have been promoting prayer journeys and releasing statements in defense of democracy in Venezuela.

The major leader of the Venezuelan opposition, candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, has presented electoral records corresponding to 81.7 percent of the total votes, and they showed that he had 67 percent of support, against 30 percent for Maduro. The electoral authority, which is controlled by the government, declared that Maduro received 52 percent of the votes.

While in previous elections – whose results were also challenged by the opposition – the Latin American Church kept a more moderate tone in its declarations, this year the messages issued by the bishops’ conferences and individual bishops of several countries have been clearly and directly of criticism of Maduro.

The country that has welcomed the highest number of Venezuelan immigrants and refugees over the past few years – with more than 2.8 million of them today – Colombia is playing a central role in the current impasse.

Left-wing President Gustavo Petro – along with Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – is expected to negotiate with Maduro a possible democratic solution for the crisis.

The Colombian Church released a statement on Aug. 2 inviting churchgoers for a day of prayer for Venezuela and Colombia on Aug. 4. The message mentioned the security crisis in Colombia, caused by the end of the ceasefire between the government and a major guerrilla organization, and “the uncertainty in the face of the Venezuelan electoral process.”

On Aug. 7, Cardinal Luis José Rueda, the Archbishop of Bogotá, sent Crux a short essay – also published on other media outlets – titled Venezuela in labor pains.

“Democracy in Venezuela is going through labor pains. Those are hopeful pains, [given] that it’s about to be born a new phase of Venezuelan history, in which the truth that leads to freedom will shine,” the article read.

The international community must accompany the Venezuelan people in that process, Rueda went on, with the purpose of finding “with wisdom and bravery a dignified, negotiated, and swift solution to the current conflict.”

“The attentive solidarity of all Latin Americans with Venezuela at this moment is imperative for the profound renovation of the institutions of that sister nation [of ours], for the strengthening of democracy, and for the growth of social friendship,” Rueda’s article concluded.

According to Bishop Juan Carlos Barreto of Soacha, who heads the Episcopal Commission of Social and Charitable Pastoral in Colombia, most Venezuelan communities in the country hoped that a victory of the opposition would bring back democracy and allow them to go back to Venezuela.

“Now, despite some disappointment, many people see the current moment as a turning point. Hope still exists in their hearts,” Barreto told Crux.

He emphasized that there are deep connections between Venezuelans and Colombians, including families that are divided by the extensive border that both countries share.

“In the 1980s, their economy was better than ours and many Colombians moved to Venezuela in order to find a better job. Over the past decade, millions of Venezuelans crossed the border into Colombia,” Barreto said.

Church organizations and dioceses have been remarkably active in providing shelter, food, and healthcare to Venezuelan immigrants over the past years, especially in major crossing points, like the city of Cucuta.

“They keep crossing. Many go to the Darien Gap in order to reach Central and then North America. While they’re here, we try to help them get the necessary documents and to avoid being exploited,” he said.

Barreto hopes that President Petro manages to negotiate alternatives with Maduro.

“Amid so many closing doors, that dialogue is an open possibility. Maybe it can lead to positive agreements,” he said.

Another episcopal conference that has manifested its concern with Venezuelan democracy was in Chile. The South American country received hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants over the past years and now the community encompasses an estimated 800,000 people.

On Aug. 1, Chile’s Bishops’ Conference issued a letter addressed to the Venezuelans in Chile. The message described how hopeful Venezuelans were about the elections.

“The questionable transparency of the election results has caused great uncertainty for you, for us, and for the international community about the future,” the document said.

The Chilean bishops wrote of their solidarity to Venezuelans and urged them to keep struggling for their dreams.

Bishop Juan Ignacio González of São Bernardo recalled that the Chilean episcopate had released a document before the elections in which it prayed for the process to be really democratic.

“But the election was not respected. It seems evident that President Maduro was not the winner, but Edmundo Gonzalez,” he told Crux.

He said that this time the manipulation of the elections, leading to unfair and arbitrary results, was too apparent, and that’s why the Latin American Church felt the need to directly criticize the Venezuelan government.

“That’s a process that has been very painful for many people. A seminarian here in my diocese is from Venezuela and came to study, but sometime later he had to bring his family due to the deteriorating situation there,” Gonzalez said.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric declared on Aug. 7 that he has “no doubts that Maduro attempted to commit fraud” and that Chile “doesn’t recognize Maduro’s self-proclaimed triumph.”

The Argentinian episcopate’s head, Bishop Oscar Ojea of San Isidro, sent a letter on Aug. 3 to the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference in which he expressed the Argentinian conference’s “adherence” to the wish expressed by the Venezuelan prelates that “the popular will manifested in the ballots becomes true.”

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has been one of the most critical voices in the region against Nicolas Maduro, refusing to acknowledge the election’s result and denouncing that the process was manipulated.

“Pacts must be observed. That’s an international principle. If elections were held, their result must be respected,” Bishop Pedro Torres of Rafaela told Crux.

He said Venezuelans have arrived in Argentina in large numbers over the past few years – there are an estimated 170,000 of them there – and such a closeness with the Venezuelan problems further increases the concerns of the Argentinian clergy with the events in Venezuela.

“The overall impression is that we don’t know the truth, given that the electoral registers are still unknown,” he said.

Torres said that many factors have contributed to a more decisive stance of the Latin American Church in regard to the Venezuelan elections now in comparison with previous ones.

“The Latin American Church is worried about peace in Venezuela. That’s a crisis that must be solved through dialogue. Peace is now under more risk in the world than it was in previous years,” he said.

The Venezuelan opposition was faster this time to show its electoral records, and the international press quickly publicized them.

“And the Venezuelans in Argentina and other countries have expressed their voices in an unprecedented way this time,” Torres added.

The Bishops’ Conferences in Mexico, Honduras, and Peru also released documents about the Venezuelan crisis. Individual bishops in Panama and other nations spoke about it as well. The Episcopal Conference of Latin America expressed its solidarity with the Venezuelan people and encouraged it against hopelessness.

Pope Francis, during the Angelus on Aug. 4, mentioned the Venezuelan crisis and asked all parties to search “for the truth, exert moderation, avoid any kind of violence, solve all conflicts through dialogue.”

In Venezuela, the Bishops’ Conference asked the government to “respect the sovereignty of the people as expressed through the votes on July 28,” adding that “ignoring the popular will is illegal and ethically unacceptable.”

On Aug. 6, Bishop Mario Moronta of San Cristobal, the vice president of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference, asked Maduro’s government to stop persecuting opposition members and declared that “the only true protagonist of democracy is the people, and no one is its owner but its collaborators and servants.”