Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blasted the country's only cardinal, who used a major religious ceremony to accuse him of acting despotically and endangering one of South America's oldest democracies.
"Insults, hate, it was shameful for the Catholic Church," Chavez said on Sunday during his weekly television and radio program. "It was undoubtedly a provocation."
Chavez demanded that the country's Roman Catholic hierarchy formally distance itself from remarks made by Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara on Saturday before hundreds of thousands of people attending the procession honoring a Virgin known as the Divine Shepherdess.
Castillo, 83, told worshippers in the city of Barquisimeto, about 280km west of Caracas, that Chavez's administration "has lost its democratic course and presents the semblance of a dictatorship."
"Almost all the branches [of government] are in the hands of just one person," said Castillo, who has increasingly criticized the president's populist policies and close relations with communist-led Cuba.
Crossing swords
Chavez and Catholic leaders have crossed swords in the past. The president has labeled the church "a tumor" in Venezuelan society and clerics have been critical of the "revolution" led by Chavez.
On Sunday, Chavez said the cardinal's remarks were part of a plot to destabilize Venezuela and urged the country's bishops to avoid a path that could "burn the country."
Castillo -- who has retired from administrative roles -- was not speaking on behalf of the Venezuelan Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference, the church's highest body of local representatives.
The president of the conference, Archbishop Ubaldo Santana, appeared to distance the bishops from Castillo's remarks on Sunday, telling Union Radio that Castillo didn't belong to the group and was "giving opinions just like any another citizen."
"What has surprised us, the other bishops as much as me, is that he would choose a setting that wasn't the most appropriate for making these statements," Santana added.
Conciliatory approach
Santana himself has criticized some government policies in the past, but he also has offered to work with the Chavez administration to fight poverty and political intolerance.
Castillo's comments came on the same day Chavez told participants in a government program to benefit the homeless that he was willing to cooperate with the bishops' conference.
"We will work together like brothers," he said. "It doesn't matter if we criticize each other ... I don't want to fight with anybody."
More than two-thirds of Venezuela's 26 million people are Catholic.
Deeply divided
The country is deeply divided over Chavez, who was first elected in 1998. Supporters applaud the president's social programs for the poor majority, while opponents fear he is leading the country toward Cuban-style communism.
Chavez has repeatedly denied that he represents a threat to democratic freedoms gained after the 1958 ousting of General Marcos Perez Jimenez, Venezuela's last dictator.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese