Leaked Letter From Clergy Could Prompt a Crackdown on Catholic Church in Venezuela

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President Maduro appears poised to borrow a page from his fellow socialist autocrats in Nicaragua by going on the warpath against the Catholic church, after a leaked letter from two Venezuelan cardinals calls for civil resistance against the country’s dictator.

Writing to the bishops of their country, the Venezuelan cardinals, Baltazar Porras and Deigo Padrón, said that the church has the “moral duty to support and sustain just initiatives against abuses with civic disobedience and resistance.”

Cardinals Porras and Padrón explicitly labeled Mr. Maduro’s victory as “evident fraud,” and called for “civic disobedience and resistance” against his regime.

This could mean the persecution of priests and other clergy in Venezuela, a Venezuelan-born fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Daniel DiMartino, says. Mr. DiMartino tells the Sun that the church’s rebellion against Mr. Maduro is the “right and Godly thing to do.”

The letter “does expose the cardinals themselves and perhaps other priests to more persecution, but it did show that they’re willing to bear that burden with their people,” he adds.

This comes after Mr. Maduro took more than 2,000 protesters and members of the opposition into custody after protests filled the country following his supposed re-election on July 28. The arrests show no signs of slowing down.

Mr. DiMartino predicts that members of the clergy who side against Mr. Maduro will be the next group to be targeted by the regime.

“The consequence of the letter is that the priests that weren’t already openly and purposefully supporting their parishioners to rebel against Maduro will begin to do more,” he says. “I don’t think, however, that the regime will focus on them until they finish arresting protesters. I do fear that they’re next.”

If the Maduro regime does focus its attention on Catholic clergy, it could mirror the policies of a fellow socialist president, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, who is persecuting the Catholic church in his country.

Earlier this year, the Nicaraguan head of state labeled Catholic clergy “terrorists” following the church’s attempt to broker a dialogue between protesters and the government over proposed social security cuts.

Mr. Ortega blamed the clergy for supporting civil unrest, which he claimed amounted to plotting a coup against him. As a result, 19 clergy members were expelled from the country and the regime desecrated churches, harassed religious leaders, and butchered protesters.

Just last week, his regime detained nine more priests and two deacons as the nationwide crackdown on the church continues, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Cardinals Porras and Padrón are expecting similar events to happen in their own country. Their letter explicitly discusses the possibility of a “Nicaraguan-style government,” but affirms that the church must stand firm in the face of “injustice,” according to the Pillar.

“We are not and we should not be neutral,” the priests wrote, speaking of a duty to “prophetically denounce, even if it’s a risk, the injustices, and proclaim our principles and values, pastorally being together with the people with solidarity.”

Venezuela’s opposition quickly claimed electoral fraud following last week’s election, and published tally sheets showing that Edmundo González was the true victor, winning by a margin of nearly 4 million votes.

When Mr. Maduro publicly retained power, he called the results of the election “irreversible” and vowed to show “no weakness” toward his political adversaries, accusing them of attempting a coup.

Several countries, including America, are condemning the election results as false and calling for Mr. Maduro to publish the tallies.

“We strongly condemn the ongoing attempts in Venezuela to undermine the will of the voters and repress the Venezuelan people following Sunday’s election,” the American Foreign Relations Committee said in a statement.

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