Caracas Chronicles

Baltazar Porras picks up the phone at the first ring, like someone who’s been traveling for days with a calendar that can’t fit another mass or meal, let alone another exchange with a journalist trying to go beyond the images of Mother Carmen Rendiles, José Gregorio Hernández, and the virtues that led them to be canonized.

Porras sounds tense when he answers me at noon on Wednesday. Two Venezuelans have just been officially declared saints.

“Good afternoon, yes, tell me,” the Cardinal says right away.

Five days after the canonization program began in Rome, the milestone of this double canonization was surrounded by what one could expect from a Catholic country under a dictatorship: uncertainty and conflict. Thanks in part to the anti-chavismo’s effective political communication, Nicolás Maduro’s regime felt humiliated for five straight days—from the moment Venezuelan pilgrims began gathering at the Vatican gates until Wednesday, October 22, when Cardinal Porras arrived in Spain to preside over a mass at La Almudena Cathedral alongside representatives of Madrid’s Archdiocese.

Chavismo couldn’t avoid the escraches in Rome against Roy Chaderton, a former Maduro diplomat who once described on state TV the sound that opposition headsn make when shot by snipers who led the chavista delegation, while the envoys from the opposition’s “Comando Con Venezuela”—including Magalli Meda, Pedro Urruchurtu, the children of opposition leader María Corina Machado, president elect Edmundo González, and several relatives of political prisoners—followed without issue the agenda of those who present themselves as the next democratic government. There was also significant representation from political prisoner activists. Raúl Baduel Jr., son of a prominent chavista general who died in political prison, appeared in front of St. Peter’s Basilica wearing a shirt printed with the face of his brother Josnars Baduel, imprisoned and tortured in El Rodeo I. Sairam Rivas, who’s been at the forefront of the fight to liberate political prisoners in Venezuela, also managed to hand Pope Leo XIV a letter about political prisoners as the pontiff crossed the square in the popemobile.

In a way, Porras had preceded them all. Before Rivas, Baduel, or the figures from the Comando could be accused of “politicizing” the saints’ celebration, the Emeritus Cardinal had already made clear what he thinks about power in Venezuela. The Vatican backed him without hesitation in the following days, even with the rhetorical nuances of a state that seeks to preserve its presence in Venezuela. Alongside Maracaibo Archbishop Édgar Peña Parra—number two in the Holy See’s diplomacy—and Raúl Biord, the current metropolitan archbishop of Caracas, Porras opened a symposium at the Pontifical Lateran University denouncing a “morally unacceptable” situation in Venezuela.

“The Vatican has long understood that this is a criminal problem for which it lacks the proper tools…”

The Cardinal cited the lack of civic freedoms, poverty, militarization as a form of government, corruption, and the absence of independence among public powers. He also referred to the situation of political prisoners, which “breaks family unity, making everyone suffer with no one to turn to.” Peña Parra—who serves as the Substitute for General Affairs at the Vatican and was previously nuncio in Mozambique and Pakistan—spoke about the “diplomacy of encounter” that the Church claims to promote in Venezuela, “not as a political strategy” but out of a need to build bridges between opposing sectors. “Peace is handmade, built from patient gestures and daily encounters,” said Monsignor Parra. “True dialogue doesn’t erase differences, but it can generate communion.”

The least politically-tinged speech came from Monsignor Biord, who, from his position in the Venezuelan capital, has had to deal face-to-face with the Maduro-Flores family in a year when the ruling elite has silenced critical voices on an unprecedented scale. In his address, the Archbishop of Caracas justified the new project Santos para Todos (Saints for All), presented to Pope Leo XIV earlier this month, which includes new initiatives in health, education, and promotion of the Catholic faith in Venezuela. The event closed with applause for Porras for his work in advancing José Gregorio’s sainthood, as said from the podium by the official postulator for the saint’s beatification and canonization cause.

Days later, we learned that, at some point before or after the symposium, someone assaulted Édgar Beltrán, Rome correspondent for The Pillar, for asking Peña Parra about Maduro’s politicization of the canonizations.

A State Against a Cardinal

None of that went unnoticed at Miraflores. On Saturday October 25th in the afternoon, two days after returning to Venezuela, Cardinal Porras denounced the government’s efforts to block his to Isnotú, José Gregorio’s hometown, where he was supposed to officiate a ceremony.

“I won’t give statements right now, because of all the things Maduro has said,” the 81-year-old Cardinal told me on Wednesday before hanging up. “Many people are telling me not to go to Venezuela, to stay away, but I haven’t committed any crime. The homily I’ll deliver tonight is already written.”

By that time, Maduro had already been insulting Porras, even while the Cardinal was still in Europe. At La Almudena, those present gave a standing ovation to Edmundo González Urrutia and his family, seated in the first row next to the exiled former mayor Antonio Ledezma. From the pulpit, the Cardinal spoke about the rot caused by corruption and about the gossip spread by those who only criticize and destroy. He echoed a striking homily from the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who had served as Apostolic Nuncio in Caracas:

“Only then, dear Venezuela, will you pass from death to life,” said the Vatican’s top diplomat. “Only then, dear Venezuela, will your light shine in the darkness. Only then will your darkness turn to midday—if you listen to the Lord’s words, who calls you to open unjust prisons, to break the bars of the stocks, to set the oppressed free, to shatter all the shackles.”

A day after Rendiles and Hernández were declared saints, Maduro launched a media campaign against Cardinal Porras. He accused him of conspiring against the “doctor of the poor,” boasting that he himself had promoted the Trujillan saint’s figure during his first meeting with Pope Francis in Rome, back in 2013. That was when his first presidential term had just begun and the Vatican had not yet been called to mediate in the initial round of negotiations between Maduro’s government and the old opposition that still held a majority in the National Assembly.

“Today José Gregorio is a saint despite you and your clique, your brotherhood. We’ll say much more later,” Maduro said on television Monday. The hashtag #BaltazarPorrasConspirador quickly spread across Facebook and X, filled with messages calling the Cardinal a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a devil in a cassock, even a coup plotter.

But the worst came on Saturday the 25th, the most important day in Venezuela’s ecclesiastical calendar because of the double canonization. Porras explained in a video that quickly spread all over social media platforms that the government had called him to say it was “inconvenient” for him to go to Isnotú because of “the risk of disturbances.” Officials told him that Conviasa’s flight to Valera was canceled, which wasn’t true. When he boarded a private plane instead, they diverted him to Maracaibo under the pretext that the Trujillo airfield was closed. Finally, roadblocks stopped him on his way to Isnotú, and he had to return to Maiquetía. María Corina Machado, of course, called out the entire sabotage operation as a violation of Venezuelan believers’ right to celebrate their new saints.

Misunderstood Diplomacy?

After years of confrontation with the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference—when Chávez attacked critical priests like Diego Padrón, Roberto Luckert, and Luis Ugalde while avoiding direct insults to the popes—Maduro’s rhetoric follows a similar script, now trying to divide Venezuelan clergy between “friends” and “conspirators.” The Church’s tone in Venezuela has also softened as authoritarianism has intensified, perhaps to avoid suffering what clergy have endured in today’s Nicaragua or in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. This attitude also aligns, for example, with the Vatican’s current rapprochements and concrete agreements with China, where the Holy See tolerates Communist Party abuses in exchange for limited influence.

In Venezuela, that relationship reached a breaking point at the end of 2016, when the Vatican was called to mediate in the first negotiation process between the government and the opposition, which at that time held a majority in the National Assembly. The opposition sought to activate a recall referendum against a deeply unpopular president, amid an emerging complex humanitarian crisis. But the process never advanced beyond the first round of talks in Caracas with Pope Francis’s special envoy, Archbishop Claudio María Celli.

In a decisive moment of chavismo’s authoritarian drift, the CNE soon blocked the referendum, and Jorge Rodríguez, president of Maduro’s legislature and key chavista strategist, alleged a supposed fraud in the opposition’s signature-collection process.

The Vatican responded by making its position public. On December 1, 2016, Cardinal Parolin published a letter outlining the conditions the Church required to continue acting as mediator in Venezuela: a humanitarian aid package, the restoration of the National Assembly’s powers, the publication of an electoral calendar, and the release of political prisoners.

Monsignor Padrón—then president of the CEV—and a newly appointed Cardinal Baltazar Porras blamed chavismo for the dialogue’s failure. Diosdado Cabello, Maduro’s top cop and enforcer, responded to Parolin’s letter by saying that the chavista regime didn’t meddle in the Vatican’s internal affairs or with priests accused of pedophilia.

Beyond repression, Maduro answered three months of protests in 2017 by installing the National Constituent Assembly. Part of the Venezuelan public criticized Pope Francis for not condemning the crackdown. In August, the Pope signed a letter asking Maduro not to convene the ANC, and the Vatican decided to distance itself from the subsequent negotiation processes, which continued until 2023 and also failed to meet Parolin’s conditions.

“The Vatican has long understood that this is a criminal problem for which it lacks the proper tools,” said one of the sources interviewed. “There was never any real difference between the CEV’s hard stance and Francis’s position, but people were demanding from the Pope an activism he was never going to exercise.”

“Today, this is a relationship between two states that goes back many years,” said Juan Salvador Pérez, editor of Revista SIC from the Gumilla Center, which belongs to the Jesuit order. “Currently, it is a respectful relationship, and without a doubt, both sides are aware of the circumstances each is living through. For the Vatican, diplomacy is the art of reunion—of building bridges, opening doors, and closing wounds. Like any art, it means doing things well, and sometimes that takes time.”

The Celebration That Never Happened

The bridges and cordial treatment between the government and the Church managed to stay in place over the past year, even after Maduro’s electoral fraud and the climate of persecution that still prevails. At the beginning of August, chavista propaganda promoted a meeting between Maduro and Cilia Flores with Monsignor Biord, Vale TV president María Eugenia Mosquera, and Arturo Peraza, rector of the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB). The press release said that they discussed preparations for the double canonization celebration. Later it became known that, in coordination with the Archdiocese of Caracas, the State would sponsor the Fiesta de la Santidad (Feast of Holiness) at the Simón Bolívar Monumental Stadium.

A venue inaugurated for baseball games and large entertainment events—symbol of chavismo’s normalization—was imposed by those in power as the site for the capital’s celebration. Sources close to religious leaders in Rome and Caracas say that this was a proposal the archdiocese couldn’t refuse, and that there was displeasure within the Curia about the decision, even if expressed sottovoce.

“It’s a circus in a country without bread. So they try to put José Gregorio in the circus, to see if people get distracted despite their anger,” said a source who preferred to remain anonymous.

The day of the celebration resulted in twenty-one new political prisoners in total, according to Foro Penal, which also asked Pope Leo XIV to intercede for them.

But the circus never happened. WIth three days to go, the Archdiocese of Caracas announced that the event at the Monumental was canceled. The excuse was the capacity limit—the number of faithful registered exceeded what logistics could handle—though it’s unclear what the real problem was. For three months, there has been an online link for pre-registration to the events in Rome, Isnotú, and Caracas, which supposedly allowed the Central Canonization Commission to keep track of attendance.

“The Maduro regime has used the canonization to expand its monopoly over every space of life in Venezuela,” said a parish priest before the cancellation. He preferred to remain anonymous for this report. “Now we have a ‘Catholic Maduro,’ facing a people who resonate with the spirit of a country that radically opposes him. He offers platforms and spaces to celebrate the saints, but only by fencing them in and shaping them to his convenience.”

Faith Slogans in Conflict

“A canonization is also a call to peace. And in that sense, it can become an opportunity that opens a framework for negotiation and dialogue, which I consider essential,” said Father Arturo Peraza. “As Cardinal Parolin has noted, it is a kairos—a moment of grace, an opportunity for us to meet again in justice, truth, and reconciliation, which can form the foundation of a path toward peace.”

In September, the UCAB rector called on Maduro to recognize María Corina Machado as a legitimate interlocutor. Considering U.S. operations in the Caribbean and Venezuela’s growing militarization, Peraza insists on an event that still seems too far away: the opposition leader in hiding, who asks Trump to intervene to remove Maduro from power, sitting down to talk with a dictator who has been hunting down her team and allies for over a year. The repression that followed July 28, 2024 reached very high levels before the United States threatened to intervene.

“The parties exist, and they must sit down to find points of convergence, mutual concessions, and compromises,” said Juan Salvador Pérez. “For example, the release of prisoners and detainees, as Pope Leo XIV has said, or the necessary and firm call for peace in the face of any internal or external act that may pose a threat.”

Maduro’s regime has continued using the same tactics on the eve of the canonizations—even in José Gregorio Hernández’s homeland. Seven residents of Trujillo are in prison for raising a banner that read We’re Going to Collect. 28J. Freedom. Another eleven people have arrest warrants for the same act, according to Clippve, the Committee for the Liberation of Political Prisoners in Venezuela. In Mérida, SEBIN agents kidnapped Dr. Pedro Fernández, coordinator of the NGO Doctors for Venezuela in that state. The day of the celebration resulted in twenty-one new political prisoners in total, according to Foro Penal, which also asked Pope Leo XIV to intercede for them.

María Corina Machado’s communications have drawn an explicit connection between the joy over Maduro’s supposed imminent fall and the popular enthusiasm surrounding the canonizations. Since 2024, María Corina’s leadership has also relied on her references to faith and to a “spiritual struggle against evil.”

Her team understands how many Venezuelans cling to God to cope with the uncertainty of the moment and interpret María Corina’s growing support as part of a series of providential signs favoring change in Venezuela. “There’s a set of symbols that seem to be shaping the idea that we’re already in the final push,” said Pedro Urruchurtu, head of international relations for the Comando Con Venezuela. For him, milestones like the Nobel Peace Prize or the canonization create a “contained energy” among the population that sustains their “desire for change and sense of purpose in the struggle.”

“These are signs that invite people to organize themselves and be ready—rooted in faith, religion, and what we must do ourselves—but also in what we must ask of God: to give us the strength to keep going.”

“What matters now isn’t the political dimension of these few hours, nor the manipulation the dictatorship carries out,” said Julio Borges, Secretary General of Primero Justicia, who claims that a miracle from the saintly doctor saved his life when he was a newborn. “What matters is that the figure of José Gregorio transcends this moment and becomes a guide, a model, someone who accompanies us on the road to the future.”