Caracas, Venezuela, Jan 18, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, called for an investigation of two bishops accused of committing “hate crimes” in homilies they gave on the Feast of the Divine Shepherdess, Jan. 14, a popular Marian feast day in the country.
On Monday, the Venezuelan president gave a speech before the Constitutional Assembly asking the Supreme Court of Justice, the Comptroller’s Office and the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the Archbishop of Barquisimeto, Antonio López Castillo; and the Bishop of San Felipe, Víctor Hugo Basabe.
Venezuela’s El Nacional reports that the bishops “cried out for the end of hunger and corruption” in their homilies. Bishop Basabe made reference to a “corrupt plague” causing starvation in the country, and Archbishop Castillo prayed the country would be saved from corruption, according to the report.
In his speech, Maduro said that “a devil comes in a cassock to call for violent confrontations, to call for civil war…and I thank the people of the state of Lara who alerted me to this filth, because I really don’t listen to [the bishops]. We don’t listen to those bandits.”
Maduro’s allegations came just days after the Venezuelan bishops’ conference called for international monitors to oversee the country’s 2018 presidential elections, calling the Constitutional Assembly controlled by Maduro “unconstitutional and illegitimate.”
Archbishop Castillo told reporters Tuesday that he had received a phone call of support from Pope Francis, according to a report from El Impulso.
“We received Pope Francis’ message and he supports us as well as the people of Venezuela,” he said.
Bishop Basabe responded to Maduro’s accusations through a letter obtained by ACI Prensa–CNA’s Spanish language sister agency. Basabe stated that his “conscience in no way reproaches him” because his “only crime seems to be serving the truth.”
“Mr. Maduro has put in my mouth words I never said. How sad it is that a national public official would so scandalously lie in front of the whole country on National Teacher’s Day. What’s worse is he accuses me committing a crime while he commits one himself,” the bishop said.
“I knew that my words would upset those who deep down in their consciences know they are responsible for the tragedy that this people whom I love is going through,” Basabe added.
“Here I am in my own church with my only weapons: my faith in Christ and the certainty that my life is in his hands. [My fate] is up to those who will not be pardoned by conscience or history,” he concluded.
Bishop Mario Moronta Rodriguez, vice-president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, also repudiated Maduro’s accusations. On Jan. 16, he appeared on the television program Circuito Éxitos, arguing that the accusations made against Lopez and Castillo are accusations “against the entire episcopate and the entire Catholic Church.”
“What they did was to simply make a statement reflecting everything we have been saying for a long time and it touches on a wound or sore,” he added.
Finally, he said that “when the bishops are called ‘devils in a cassock,’ [Maduro] is also inciting hatred.”
“There are a lot of people going hungry. If that’s calling for hatred then the dramatic nature of that law has to be changed,” he concluded.
In a Jan 16 press release, the Venezuelan bishops’ conference expressed their solidarity with Lopez and Basabe, and said that President Maduro, “totally twisted the message” given by both of them, “with the purpose of claiming the bishops were committing a crime.”
“The truth about what is happening in the country was evidenced in the homilies given that day. The gestures of the thousands of parishioners present at the Mass on Venezuela Avenue showed they agreed with what they were hearing,” the statement added.
Venezuela’s hate crime law “criminalizes any demonstrations” against the government, the bishops noted.
“We exhort all the parishioners of the Archdiocese of Barquisimeto and the Diocese of San Felipe to care for your pastors, to be alert to any move against them, which could attack their human dignity,” the statement added.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA
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Another political stunt.
SOL,
I expect some people got inspired to participate in this for political reasons but still, good for the KC helping these folks at Christmas time.
I don’t like immigration used as a tool to gain political power & a larger constituency for Democrats either, but you know without it we’re going to be in the same kind of demographic implosion as Europe & Japan face. Look at the current US birth rates. Pretty dismal.
The strategy should be to attract honest, hardworking Christian folk from South of the border & not alienate them so that they run straight into the arms of liberal politicians who want to use them to overturn conservative states like TX.
I don’t believe liberal Democrats have the immigrants’ best interest-witness their campaign to abort migrant girls’ infants. But liberals claim to & they don’t publicly show the hostility that many of our conservatives do. We might could learn something from that.
Why not try the novel idea of increasing the native American birthrate? There are many valid reasons to declare an immigration moratorium and no good ones for continuing mass Third World immigration.
Tony,
Amen to your comments. And if demographic trends continue, the majority population will eventually be traditional Catholics, Amish, orthodox Jews, and others who bother to reproduce themselves. But that may take some time.
Mrscracker, the groups you list will be swamped by the dispararte (they are hardly all Latin American or Christian) Third World mob that is being ushered into this country by a treasonous elite. They will be united, temporarily, anyway, by their resentment of the country that was foolish enough to let them in. When the remnant middle class backbone of Americais finally vanquished, the war of all against all that is barely being suppressed today, will begin in earnest. May I ask if you at least oppose Muslim immigration into Western countries?
Mrscracker,
In an age of the ongoing collapse of industrial systems predicated upon cheap energy and easy access to resources, the problem of population implosion will eventually take care of itself, as those who are willing to surmount the hardship and reproduce will replace those who cannot.
The case for increasing the population through the reception of immigrants is one predicated upon infinite growth, which is not sustainable, and as you noted, aids the leftist revolutionaries. Immigrants are already alienated in so far as they have and seek to maintain a different identity and wishful thinking will not cause integration or their voluntary abandonment of their identity. And hostility by those being overwhelmed by them is a natural and just response. Violence is more likely than not if their numbers continue to increase. At this point the consequences are probably already in motion and very little can probably be done to prevent them. What can be done though is for Roman Catholics to preserve the credibility of their church and religion, but their bishops are ignorant of the dangers of the current situation and they are content to think the status quo can eventually favor their institution.
In continuing their current course Latin bishops will discredit themselves and their religion if and when there is a reaction to the status quo and the elites behind it.
Well stated, SOL. Based on their extreme leftist position on immigration alone, it is very hard for this practicing Catholic to regard the great majority of the Church hierarchy as being anything other than an enemy of my family, country and civilization.
SOL,
Thank you for your comments too.
Our plummeting fertility rates don’t foretell anything like infinite growth. More likely shrinking and aging. Without immigration that’s going to happen a whole lot sooner.
A smaller population isn’t the problem as much as an age imbalanced population. If you take a look at the demographic data and projections you see increasing numbers of elderly and fewer and fewer young people entering the workforce.
Birth rates are falling globally in all but a couple regions. One day we may wish we had more Christian immigrants to fill the empty places in our nation.
I don’t believe mass immigration is a good idea nor do I believe in open borders but Americans seem to have so little appreciation of their own culture that they can’t be bothered to create another generation to pass it down to.
The economic system and the decisions of the elites are based on the fantasy of infinite growth.
“but Americans seem to have so little appreciation of their own culture that they can’t be bothered to create another generation to pass it down to.”
I suspect this may be more true of blue urban areas than red rural areas, which have other difficulties.
See this link for more on infinite growth: https://psmag.com/.amp/magazine/fallacy-of-endless-growth
Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem to comply with the census. How many people were in the same boat and were there because of the census? The story of Mary and Joseph not finding a room at an inn could be a story of a community overwhelmed by there being more people than the community could handle at one time.
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The USA may be a rich powerful nation, but it does not have unlimited resources. There are only so many people that the USA can admit at one time while maintaining an orderly immigration process. A responsible host doesn’t invite more guests than the host can provide hospitality for. Illegal immigrants are gate-crashers. The mess at the Southern border is what happens when you have a large number of gate-crashers.
SOL,
Thank you very much for the link to that article.
I think that illustrates exactly what the misconceptions are about population. People are still basing their fears on theories from the 1970’s. It’s not 1972 anymore and things have changed dramatically.
Population implosion is what we need to be concerned about in the coming decades.
Though it’s certainly not a Catholic book and the author doesn’t hold our views on contraception, etc., I’d really recommend reading “Factfulness ” by Hans Rosling. Things really have changed globally and will continue to change. Not necessarily for the better, but not what was predicted in 1972 either.
God bless!