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Politics and Church in Venezuela: Perspectives and Horizons

RECENT DOCUMENTS FROM church conferences, councils, and institutions throughout Venezuela have regularly employed and suggested two basic moral criteria for interpreting the nation’s changing political situation: (1) the practice of exercising political power (ethical legitimacy of organizational and operational mediation); and (2) the horizon of any political system (structural criticism and legitimacy of purposes related to the new emerging model). This new political system, known since 2005 as “21st-Century Socialism,” is supported by President Hugo Chávez, even though it appears to be neither mandated by nor aligned with the articles of the 1999 National Constitution. The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference insisted on the need to clarify the orientation of this emerging model because “its ideological foundations and the models proposed as a reference . . . can indeed be an attempt to impose a single way of thinking. Faced with this, it is absolutely necessary that the Government and the official political sector clarify with no ambiguities or delays their reiterated proposal for this ‘21st-Century Socialism.’” The bishops’ exhortation carried two particular critiques: