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Venezuela___________________________________________________________________
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Bringing on the Apocalypse
A new president locked horns with the bishops on
the
protection of life and the meaning of democracy
By Alejandro Bermudez
Despite his unusual, even demagogic style, the Venezuelan Catholic bishops decided to give Hugo Chavez the benefit of the doubt after he was elected to the country’s presidency in December 1998. In fact, the bishops asked their followers to give Chavez a level of support that was being denied to the new leader by almost every other significant political or economic power bloc in Venezuela.
Despite the fact that Chavez was the same military officer who, in 1992, had engineered an abortive military coup—seeking unsuccessfully to interrupt the workings of South America’s oldest democracy—the bishops were convinced that the ubiquitous corruption plaguing Venezuela posed even greater dangers to democracy than Chavez himself. The graft that pervaded the political system, the bishops had concluded, was being fostered rather than restrained by the bipartisan system; it was time for a change.
Elected by a large majority, as the first president in more than 40 years who was not associated with one of the two major Venezuelan parties, Chavez pushed his way to power with a lowbrow populist style that sometimes made the American populist upstart Jesse Ventura (the former professional wrestler who shocked the US political world by winning election as governor of Minnesota) look like an elitist. Nevertheless, the bishops put their faith in Chavez’s desire to make bold political changes, and even supported his call for a convention designed to redraw Venezuela’s constitution.
Constitutional insurance against abortion
The first tensions between the bishops and the iconoclastic new leader began to appear in November, when that constitutional convention—which Chavez had successfully packed with his own followers, so that he controlled 90 percent of the votes—decided to remove from the country’s constitution the section that specified that the Venezuelan government would protect the life of the human person from the moment of conception. That language, which is similar to language that appears in most of South America’s national constitutions, makes it extremely difficult to pass new legislation legalizing abortion. With the removal of that key paragraph, however, unrestricted abortion would be only one legislative step away from reality; the practice could be legalized by a simple change in the penal code.
Immediately noticing the danger posed by that constitutional tinkering, the Venezuelan bishops rallied their troops. They called upon the country’s Catholics in general, and pro-life activists in particular, to protest the proposed amendment. So for the first time since his rise to political prominence, Chavez saw protest marches organized not by his own followers, but by demonstrators objecting to the plans of his constitutional convention.
President Chavez exchanged some critical words with Catholic bishops—including a particularly sharp exchange with Archbishop Ignacio Velasco Garcia of Caracas—but the potential crisis was defused when the president sat down with a delegation from the episcopal conference to discuss the issue. Finally an agreement was reached. The language calling for defense of the unborn would be retained in the constitution, although it would be removed from the opening section (where it had appeared) and given a less prominent place in the document.
Too much power?
However in late November, when the new constitution was finished and Chavez had a December 15 referendum to ratify the new document, the bishops once again found themselves at odds with the increasingly aggressive Chavez.
After a few weeks of escalating tensions, the new conflict exploded into the public in early December, when Archbishop Roberto Luckert Leon of Coro warned that the new constitution gave too much power to the central government. Archbishop Luckert also criticized the president for labeling those who were campaigning against ratification as “enemies of Venezuela.” The archbishop reasoned: “If this is a truly democratic contest, President Chavez must accept the ‘No’ as a valid option for which the people can vote.”
Chavez’s reaction was surprisingly ferocious. He told Archbishop Luckert to “mind your own business,” and openly accused “the Church and the priests” of supporting “a conspiracy against the constitution and against myself.”
And if that rhetoric sounded a bit extreme, Chavez was not finished. “The priests are now bringing on the apocalypse, together with all the enemies of the Venezuelan people,” Chavez said. “There are only two options here: you either vote for God or for the devil, for ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, and the voice of the people is the voice of God,” said the president.
Archbishop Luckert was not ready to back down. “President Hugo Chavez must not forget that he is the representative of all Venezuelans and that we chose him to govern us as a civilian, not as a military leader,” he said. Moreover, the Archbishop of Coro accused Chavez of “contributing to a climate of violence, tension, and conflict, when the country needs an environment of recollection and peace, the better to decide on its future.”
Archbishop Luckert also said that it was “embarrassing” to see the president “criticizing the Church at international meetings.” That complaint was a reference to the recent visit by Chavez to Cuba, where the Venezuelan leader had repeated his accusation that the Catholic bishops were being unpatriotic by opposing his plans for the new constitution.
Archbishop Luckert made it clear that he would not be intimidated by fierce presidential rhetoric; in fact, he might match it. As he said:
Hugo Chavez is the president of all Venezuelans, including those who are both for and against the constitution. By calling his critics names, and creating a Manichean culture, he is doing very little good for Venezuela.
Then, raising his tone, the archbishop added:
And listen, Mr. President: I will not shut up, because each time you say something against the Church, we will confront you and ask you for explanations. If you shoot, you must be ready to be shot at.
More trouble ahead
According to Hilarion Cardozo, a respected Catholic politician and a former Minister of Justice in the Venezuelan government, although President Chavez still enjoys strong support among the country’s people, he is playing a dangerous political game by rushing into conflict with the Catholic hierarchy. Populist sentiments can shift quickly, he pointed out, and Chavez has no permanent power base. Thus Cardozo concludes, “it is very unwise of him to alienate institutions, especially when all the political establishment is against him.”
As Cardozo sees it, the Venezuelan bishops are set against the ratification of the new constitution, but have “some reasonable concerns about how some paragraphs seem to be tailored too much to support Chavez’s authoritarian style.” And Cardozo points out that most of Venezuela’s institutions—the two major political parties, the judiciary, the major media outlets, and the business organizations—are all more or less openly opposing the new constitution. “In general,” he observes, “the Catholic episcopate is one of the few institutions not wholeheartedly opposed to the project.”
Nevertheless, looking beyond this national referendum, the former justice minister sees some more rocky terrain for relations between Chavez and the bishops, especially in the field of life and family issues. Although Chavez has several Catholic pro-lifers on his governing team (and the new president described himself as a pro-life advocate during his presidential campaign), the administration’s top adviser on population issues is Maricela Padron, a staunch proponent of legal abortion. After working to promote the use of contraceptives in Venezuela, Padron was recently hired as regional director for the UN Population Fund in Latin America. It is widely believed that she was responsible for the effort to eliminate the pro-life language from the opening of the Venezuelan constitution.
Although that crucial language has now been retained, there is a subtle change in its presentation, according to Hilarion Cardozo. “The rights of the unborn have not been included in the paragraphs related to the right to life,” he points out, “but in the sections related to the rights of maternity.” That change, he argues, is “certainly a downgrading” in the country’s commitment to protect unborn life. And as a result, he believes, “people like Padron will now try to push pro-abortion legislation at lower levels.”
If that analysis is correct, Cardozo warns: “a long-term battle lies ahead.” The former government minister, who now sits in the national legislature, reports that Maricela Padron is already coordinating a lobbying effort by feminists and family-planning agencies, aiming to achieve the legalization of abortion at least under some circumstances.
The country’s Catholic bishops are alert to this possibility. President Chavez has advertised himself as a pro-life Catholic, and during a visit to the Vatican, he held a meeting with the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, at which he was outspoken in asserting his commitment to the protection of human life and the traditional family.
Nevertheless, the Venezuelan bishops now know that the only predictable thing about Chavez is that he is unpredictable. So while they express their hope for a smoother relationship with the president in future months—particularly when matters of life and family are concerned—they are on guard. As Cardozo puts it, while the bishops are hoping for the best, “they are also getting ready for the worst.”
Alejandro Bermudez writes for the ACI-Prensa news agency in Lima, Peru.
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