_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Bishops critical of President
Chavez reaction is cautious
Venezuela’s bishops have issued a statement critical of President Hugo Chavez, saying he has failed to deliver on his promises to address poverty and crime.
The bishops made their statement in a report to a conference of Latin American bishops. They accused the populist president of failing to respect democratic institutions, including manipulating the recent constitutional review. The bishops said those 1999 changes were “centered and concentrated on the personal popularity and power of the president.”
Venezuela’s bishops cited “massive, dehumanizing poverty,” growing violent crime, and widespread unemployment. These situations persist, they added, despite government revenues swollen by high-priced oil exports and despite electoral promises made by Chavez to improve the lot of the vast majority of Venezuelans living in poverty. The reform promise “has not been translated into effective changes, especially social and economic,” the report said.
Diosadado Cabello, Chavez’s new chief of staff, said, “When we see . . . the Church hierarchy shed all the privileges they have now, without luxury cars, just like normal citizens, then maybe I might start believing this message that the government isn’t tackling poverty,” adding he was speaking on a personal basis.
Chavez’s own relations with the Church have been testy. “While the president says he is a Catholic . . . he criticizes and bitterly attacks the leadership of the bishops, and creates divisions,” the report said. It noted Chavez had even referred to some clergy who disagreed with him as “devils.”
Chavez himself was uncharacteristically mild in his response to the bishops’ critique. The president said that he would address the bishops’ concerns carefully, and that he did not want to prompt a conflict with the Catholic hierarchy.
Latin bishops speak for human life
Cautious on globalization
The Latin American bishops’ council (CELAM) ended its 28th Ordinary Assembly in May with a message calling on Catholics to defend life, strengthen democracy, and fight poverty in the continent.
The meeting, held in Caracas, Venezuela, May 15-18 included some 60 bishops—presidents and delegates of the bishops’ conferences from Latin America and the Caribbean. The meeting was also attended by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Council for Latin America, as well as Bishop Cipriano Calderón Polo, vice president of the same Vatican dicastery.
In the final document, CELAM said, “Latin America has started the new millennium with worrying signs, such as the fragility and vulnerability of the region’s economies. The effects of an out-of-control economic globalization as well as the burden of the foreign debt generate problems that have widely increased poverty.”
CELAM also said that beside a weak economy, the region also faces “a very weak democracy: in some places the legitimacy of the government is challenged and justice is still very imperfect.” The bishops said, “We observe, in some of our countries, a crisis of the government’s stability, as well as the lack of leaders committed to promoting the common good.” In this regard CELAM expressed its “support, fraternity, and solidarity” with the Venezuelan bishops in their verbal confrontation with President Hugo Chavez.
The bishops’ council said the social crisis on the continent “has an immediate, dramatically negative effect on the family.” They added, “To this problem, we must also add the challenges posed in the fields of reproduction and the preservation of human life by some scientific possibilities.”