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VENEZUELA-WORDS Jul-19-2005 (490 words) With photo. xxxi
Venezuelan bishops' statement leads to war of words with president
By Mike Ceaser
Catholic News Service
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNS) -- A statement by the Venezuelan bishops' conference criticizing Venezuela's populist government has led to a new set of verbal attacks between church leaders and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The church statement, issued in mid-July at the close of the bishops' annual assembly, called on citizens not to permit the nation's justice system to be used to "impose an unjust legality and to punish dissidents." The statement also warned against Parliament passing laws without due consideration and consensus, saying "there are those who try to solve differences by the imposition of force ... and by the arbitrary imposition of power or of arms."
Church representatives recently criticized a proposed law in Parliament to legalize abortion in some situations and often have accused Chavez of eliminating the government's checks and balances and permitting lawlessness.
The church statement was followed the weekend of July 16-17 by an interview with retired Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, a former Vatican official who told the El Universal newspaper that Venezuela had only a "varnish of democracy."
"I am convinced that there is a dictatorship here; I am speaking of the despotic and arbitrary exercise of power concentrated in a single person," he said.
The Venezuelan people should "reject and not recognize" Chavez's government, Cardinal Castillo Lara said.
In his July 17 radio and TV call-in program, Chavez called Cardinal Castillo Lara a "bandit" and "immoral" and said the cardinal "has the devil inside."
"That poor guy makes me feel sick and sad," Chavez said. The president has made similar comments before, once calling the church leadership "a tumor."
A populist leader who appeals most strongly to the nation's poor majority, Chavez has often clashed with the church leadership, which he calls elitist. Church leaders played a prominent role in the short-lived military-backed coup that ousted Chavez for two days in April 2002.
Chavez says his "Revolution for the Poor" is investing the nation's huge petroleum wealth into helping the poor. Opposition leaders point out that poverty has risen since Chavez was elected in 1998 and accuse him of promoting lawlessness and weakening Venezuela's democracy.
After Chavez's statements, opposition political figures rallied around the church leaders.
Archbishop Roberto Luckert Leon of Coro noted that Chavez led a military coup attempt in 1992. Archbishop Luckert also predicted that Venezuelans would lose their freedom of speech and the nation would become like Cuba, "with a single television station and a single newspaper."
Cuban President Fidel Castro is a close ally of Chavez.
Caracas sociologist Mercedes Pulido, a Chavez critic who was minister of the family under a previous government, said Chavez also was angered by several surveys released in mid-July that found that the Catholic Church is the institution with the highest credibility among Venezuelans.
The church "is the only institution which (Chavez) has not been able to control," she said.
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Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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