After 25 years under “Chavismo,” many Venezuelans hoped that the July 28 elections would lead to a decisive defeat of leader Nicolas Maduro, who has been in power for 11 years.
However, once more the regime showed it’s not willing to go down and announced shortly after midnight that the president was re-elected.
One of the social segments that has to deal with an especially fierce persecution by the government, the Catholic Church reacted with the same incredulity that the Venezuelan masses have been showing in the face of the results released by the electoral authority, which are very different from the polls carried out on the days before voting.
In cities all over the country, Catholics have been part of popular demonstrations promoted by the opposition against Maduro. At least in some of them, lay brothers or priests played an important role. That’s the case of El Tigre, the State capital of Anzoátegui, where Brother Giovanni Luisio Mass, who heads the canonical association Order of the Poor Knights of Christ in Venezuela, lives and works.
“We were part of the avant-garde of the march here in my diocese. When the news of Maduro’s election arrived, we felt a deep indignation,” Mass told Crux. Continue reading