Venezuelan Cardinal calls for country built on “true freedom and democracy.”

Caracas, Venezuela, Jan 12, 2004 / 22:00 pm

Venezuelan Cardinal Rosalío Castillo Lara is calling on his fellow countrymen to build a country upon “true freedom and democracy,” under the guidance of the Blessed Mother.

 The Cardinal denounced “the out-dated and absurd political system which has been imposed through tyranny, deception, and force and which has only brought about ruin, destruction and slavery.  Hatred and deceit have been sown in Venezuela and violence has become the natural offspring of this sowing.”

The problems have been compounded by “the profanation of venerated images of the Blessed Virgin, which deeply hurts the feelings of the Venezuelan people and their love for the Blessed Virgin,” he added.

“Let us ask [Our Lady] to grant us a government based on freedom and democracy, that all might participate in the building of the country, but above all, that she might bring a longed-for peace back to Venezuela, that we might all live united as the brothers and sisters that we are, that there might be peace and justice, that hatred might cease, that we might learn to overcome evil with good, that our hope will not grow dim,” the Cardinal said.

Cardinal Castillo celebrated Mass in the Shrine of Our Lady of Coromoto, the country’s patroness, together with the President of the Venezuelan Bishops Conference, Archbishop Baltazar Porras, Archbishop André Dupuy, the Apostolic Nuncio, who read a message from Pope John Paul II, and 40 other bishops from the country.