CARACAS, Venezuela (LifeSiteNews) — Two Venezuelan cardinals urged citizens to practice “civic resistance” after widespread protests have spread in response to the government’s “evident fraud” in recent national elections.
In a jointly signed letter issued August 1, Cardinals Baltazar Porras and Diego Padrón provided a detailed assessment of the state of the nation in Venezuela. The letter is a rare direct ecclesial statement on a nation’s politics and is written in light of the July 28 Venezuelan elections.
Highlighting the principle of “non-violence,” the two cardinals nevertheless urged thousands of Venezuelans protesting the elections “to support and sustain just initiatives to confront arbitrariness and disobedience” or practice “civic resistance with ethical and even religious roots.”
July 28 elections contested
Sitting President Nicolás Maduro was declared by the national election authority to have secured a third-term victory over Edmundo González. The election results, while defended by national authorities, have been widely and instantly disputed by Venezuelans and international figures who have strongly attested that González won more votes.
This is the view shared by the 79-year-old Porras and 85-year-old Padrón: “The Venezuelan electoral process of last July 28 did not crystallize in favor of the leader of the ruling party, the current President of the Republic,” they wrote, adding:
In a civic and exemplary manner, the people demonstrated, with an overwhelming majority, against him, and decided a change in the general orientation of the government regime.
They wrote that the government’s reaction to the election had been “to flatly deny the opposition triumph and, without showing evidence, which are the voting records, which should be an authentic reflection of the popular expression materialized in the vote, has officially proclaimed the current President Nicolás Maduro Moros as the winner.”
Even mainstream media have described the election as “tainted,” and numerous national presidents in South America have questioned the results. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reported by the BBC as saying that “given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s 28 July presidential election.”
In the face of Maduro’s claiming victory in the election, protests and demonstrations have broken out, demanding he step aside for a new government. González’s opposition party leader – María Corina Machado – has called on such protests to be peaceful:
We must proceed in a peaceful manner. We should not fall into the provocations the government has set us. They want to make Venezuelans face off against each other.
Such scenes were described by the two cardinals thus:
the government has reacted by using the force of the police and armed groups to repress the legitimate and largely peaceful protests, to the point of causing some 20 deaths, numerous wounded and imprisoning indiscriminately a thousand political opponents, constructing a story, a narrative to suit itself, holding the opposition responsible for all the outrages that have their origin in the repression promoted by them.
‘Coup d’état’
As Maduro’s government has insisted on clamping down on the protests and refusing to show the voting records, Cardinals Porras and Padrón styled such a stance as using the “logic of a ‘coup d’état’ constructed ad hoc.”
“There are indications that the regime is ‘fabricating’ other records to suit its interests,” the two prelates warned. “It has been reported that opposition table leaders and witnesses have been intimidated to sign them.”
Indeed, as international condemnation of Maduro has grown, Porras and Padrón warned the country risked becoming a “Nicaraguan style of government,” alluding to the anti-Catholic and totalitarian rule enacted by President Daniel Ortega.
“It will be the struggle of David against Goliath,” the prelates opined. “Governance will be wounded by the lack of legitimacy of origin, and this will also have its internal and external consequences.”
Both Parros and Padrón served as president of the national bishops’ conference from 1999 to 2006 and 2012 to 2018, respectively. Calling on their fellow bishops, they urged that Catholic leaders “are not and cannot be neutral” on the issue.
“We must carefully verify the facts, to denounce prophetically, even at risk, injustices, and to proclaim our principles and values, in solidarity and pastoral accompaniment of the people, a task that is not easy but necessary,” they stated.
Indeed, the pair even drew from the talking points of synodality, saying that “spiritual, synodal accompaniment” of “victimized people” presents a challenge.
“What we cannot do is to become just another Church of silence, letting time pass in vain,” they cautioned.
The “official narrative that seeks to legitimize itself by blaming the opposition for all the ills of the country,” Parros and Padrón said about Maduro’s response to the protests.
Cardinals’ call to action
Drawing on their experience of the local politics, the two cardinals anticipated that government would being calling for “dialogues” with churches and religious leaders “under the premise of recognizing the proclamation of the results” that declare Maduro as president.
Such a “sign of pretended legitimacy and security,” Parros and Padrón wrote, “is inadmissible because it would mean ignoring the evident fraud, the manifest usurpation, ignoring the unequivocally expressed popular sovereignty, and the consequent right to express peacefully, but decisively and firmly the legitimate protest.”
As a result, they cited St. John’s Gospel (8:32) and urge Venezuelans to peacefully resist the government:
In the classic terms of “active nonviolence” appears on the horizon the moral duty to support and sustain just initiatives to confront arbitrariness and disobedience and / or civic resistance with ethical and even religious roots, according to the spirit of the Beatitudes: to respond to evil with good, and to be peacemakers in the hope that “the truth (will) set us free” ( Jn. 8:32).
Papal concern
The increasingly volatile situation in Venezuela after the election has continued to spiral and draw international concern. Reports differ with many downplaying the figures of arrests and deaths, but Parros and Padrón spoke about 20 deaths and more than 1,000 arrests by August 1.
Protesters and politicians opposing Maduro have been violently arrested.
Machado, who leads the party represented in the election by opposition candidate González, went into hiding after Maduro announced his intention to throw her and González in jail over their role in inciting “criminal violence.”
Responding to the rapidly deteriorating crisis, Pope Francis made a plea for peace and “truth” in the face of the “critical situation” during his August 4 Angelus.
“I make a heartfelt appeal to all parties to seek the truth, to exercise restraint, to avoid any kind of violence, to settle disputes through dialogue, to have at heart the true good of the people and not partisan interests,” he said. “Let us entrust the country to the intercession of Our Lady of Coromoto, so loved and venerated by Venezuelans, and to the prayer of Blessed José Gregorio Hernandez, whose witness unites us all.”