Desecrations of Divine Shepherdess images stir polarized Venezuela
A wave of vandalism against sacred images has shocked Venezuelans and sparked finger-pointing between the two sides of the bitter political divide characterizing President Hugo Chavez’s rule. Most of the vandalism has been directed against statues and images of the “Divine Shepherdess” — a local patron saint whose annual festival is one of Latin America’s biggest.
Most shockingly, what seems to be a bullet-hole has pierced the cheek of one statue of the Shepherdess in the western state of Lara, while her attending sheep have been smashed. Among dozens of such desecrations in the last few weeks, the statue of a saintly doctor, Jose Gregorio Hernandez, was decapitated in Yaracuy state, while another sculpture of the “Coromoto Virgin” had her hands chopped off.
Red paint has been sprayed over various images.
“These are utterly horrible events that offend the Catholic sentiment of the Venezuelan people,” senior Catholic leader Monsignor Jesus Gonzalez de Zarate told local TV. No suspects have been caught and some think a “satanic” cult may be responsible — but many Venezuelans suspect politics may be to blame for the mystery vandalism.
Though often proclaiming his Catholicism and using religious language in speeches, the socialist Chavez has lambasted the church’s hierarchy throughout his 12 years in power as being aligned with Venezuela’s rich and elite. He has never forgiven Catholic leaders for their perceived blessing of a 2002 coup that briefly toppled him.
Chavez’s Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami vowed to punish those behind the vandalism and said he suspects government foes were trying to discredit it. Many opposition supporters, though, say the attacks are the work of left-wing extremists from the most militant ranks of Chavez’s supporters.
Venezuelans turn to God over power crisis
Power-rationing has failed. The rains have still not come. So Venezuelan electricity workers are seeking divine help to solve the nation’s power crisis.
State oil company Edelca has summoned all its workers to an hourlong prayer meeting scheduled for Friday and titled: “Clamor to God for the National Electricity Sector.”
“Let us support this summons with our presence, united in our commitment to lift up our great company,” Edelca President Igor Gavidia Leon wrote in a note to staff, under a quote from the Bible saying God will hear the prayers of humble people.
Read the whole report here.
Honduran Catholic hierarchy opposes Zelaya and Chavez
Honduras’ powerful Roman Catholic Church has backed the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, surrendering a chance to be an impartial mediator in order to counter the influence of Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chavez.
Leaders of the Catholic Church, the most respected institution in the country, have backed the ouster and thrown their weight behind the interim government installed by the Honduran Congress.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, often mentioned as a possible future pope, has justified Zelaya’s ouster while opposing his expulsion from the country. “He doesn’t have any authority, moral or legal,” Rodriguez told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. “
“The legal authority he lost because he broke laws and the moral authority he lost with a discourse full of lies. The most patriotic thing he could do is stay away. Anything else is just trying to impose Hugo Chavez’s project at all costs.”
Accurate – it’s good at least the church is standing up for the people, even if the U.S. and U.N. created a farce. Zelaya was trying to establish himself as president-for-life, Chavez-style, with Chavez as his mentor.
Here are excerpts from an important article “The Chavez-Obama U.N. Plot Against Honduras” by Cliff Kincaid :
“…former Marxist SDS radical Tom Hayden, leader of Progressives for Obama, has written about the Obama-Chavez relationship. Based on his own inside sources of information, Hayden said that he thinks Obama and Chavez are working together on Honduras and have an “understanding,” which he even describes as “collaboration.” The call Chavez made to Shannon suggests that Chavez is calling the shots. ”
” …this would benefit Iran, a terrorist state developing nuclear weapons which is developing a vast network throughout Latin America. A recent report from the organization examines the deep Iranian connections to Venezuela as well as Bolivia…
“…If the Obama Administration is, in effect, acting as an agent of Venezuela and Iran in Honduras, such a foreign policy could be described not only as anti American but potentially treasonous, considering that the outcome could be the loss of another country in Latin America to the Chavez brand of communism.
It is time for some investigative reporting into the nature of the Chavez Obama axis. ”
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media
Prominent cardinal backs coup and rule of law in Honduras
Men touted as a possible next pope of the Roman Catholic Church rarely get involved in public debates over a coup d’etat or wars of words with heads of state. But that’s what Tegucigalpa Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga has done recently in the the political crisis in his country, Honduras. Before the overthrown President Manuel Zelaya made his failed attempt to return home, Rodriguez issued a statement in a televised address declaring his ouster legal and warning Zelaya could spur “a bloodbath” if he came back to Honduras.
The July 3 televised statement, signed by the 11 bishops of Honduras, exhorted Hondurans to seek a peaceful solution to the political crisis and rejected international criticism of Zelaya’s ouster even as it condemned the manner he was kicked out of the country.
Rodriguez, one of the Latin America’s most prominent Catholic leaders, was frequently mentioned as a possible next pontiff in 2005 when he and his fellow cardinals gathered to elect a successor to Pope John Paul. There was much talk at the time that a cardinal from the developing world, where the majority of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics live, took over at the Vatican. When the conclave opted for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the German was called “the last European pope.” The Latin Americans could win the next conclave if they could only rally behind one candidate, the Italian media speculated. Rodriguez, then a young 62, was often mentioned as the man with the best chances.
In the meantime, Rodriguez, a former president of the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM), has taken over as president of Caritas Internationalis, the worldwide Catholic charity organisation. That gives the polyglot prelate an international profile bound to boost his name recognition among other cardinals.
Like Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed president by Honduran lawmakers after the June 28 coup, Rodriguez argued that kicking Zelaya out of office was fully backed by Honduran law. Rodriguez said Zelaya’s bid for a nationwide referendum that could have extended presidential term limits violated an article in the Honduran constitution, which states that anyone who seeks to change a prohibition on presidential reelection immediately loses any office they hold.
But Rodriguez also backed off from supporting the staging of the coup, noting that the government’s move to forcibly deport Zelaya was blatantly illegal. He went on to scold the Organization of American States for not paying closer attention to the crisis brewing in Honduras as Zelaya prepared to hold his referendum. He also took a veiled swipe Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was building a growing alliance with Zelaya.
“The Honduran people ask why there has been no condemnation of the warlike threats against our country. If the inter-American system is limited to protecting democracy at the ballot box but not in fostering good government, the prevention of political, economic and social crisis, it doesn’t do any good to react tardily in the face of them,” the bishops statement said.
Honduras stood up against the coup plotter Mel Zelaya, who got his support from the entrenched super-rich and super-powerful and of course robbing millions from the programs for the poor. This International Socialist Mafia cynically pushing so-called “socialism” in the name of the poor to make sure the poor can never overthrow their tyranny.And of course these socialists hate the “petit bourgeousie” most of all because they show that the best thing to do for the poor is to make sure these oppressors stop harassing small businesses and hanging them with too much government.–Socialism is a rich man’s trickk to oppress the poor, just like Zelaya screwed the poor in Honduras, and Chavez in Venezuela.And like the super-capitalists like Armand Hammer and the Rockefellers and the Warburgs who made back-alley deals to make sure the Bolsheviks didn’t collapse from their abuse of the workers and the poor.–Now comes super-billionaire Chavez ally George Soros who never saw an oppressive dicatorial tyrant he didn’t give gobs of money to with strings..–aec
Chavez takes moral high ground, closes “Bodies Revealed”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s closure of the “Bodies Revealed” exhibition of dissected human cadavers and subsequent confiscation of the bodies is perhaps the strongest government reaction yet to the worldwide trend for the traveling art and science shows that have been seen by millions.
Chavez called the exhibition a sign of worldwide “moral decomposition,” adding to criticism of similar shows by the Roman Catholic church in Canada and controversy over the origin of the bodies when an exhibit arrived in New York. One academic cited Dante’s Inferno to describe the “Body World” exhibit as “Dead Body Porn.”
Chavez is a fervent Christian and frequently makes reference to Jesus Christ, who he says was the “first socialist.”
At times he shows a morally conservative side declaring himself a feminist but speaking out against abortion, which is illegal in Venezuela except in cases of a threat to the life of a pregnant woman.
(Photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, shown here with his Panamanian counterpart Martin Torrijos has taken the moral high ground, and not for the first time. REUTERS/Miraflores Palace/Handout, March 3, 2009)
I note from your photograph that your head comes to a point. My condolences.
I also want to give you condolences re some 30,000 guns being melted down into a pile of only 5 tons. Perhaps you weren’t taught anything about mathematics, probabilities nor truth.
If you are using the mouthings of Chavez for any of your reporting, please remember what country grows the most dope in the world.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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