Caracas, Venezuela, Jul 16, 2010 / 11:52 am
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has once again lashed out at the Catholic Church, this time against Pope Benedict XVI, saying, “He is not an ambassador of Christ.” “Christ,” he asserted, “is in the people.”
“Christ doesn’t need any ambassadors,” Chavez said, announcing that the the relationship between Venezuela and the Holy See would be reviewed. “We must review those accords, with all due respect to the Vatican State and to the Pope, who is no ambassador of Christ on Earth, as they say.”
“Christ is in the people and in those who fight for the justice of the liberation of the meek, that’s where Christ is - the true Christ, Our Father, the liberator of the poor on Earth, the supreme example of sacrifice for those who suffer,” Chavez went on.
The Venezuelan leader also launched new insults against the Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino. “I called you a 'Neanderthal.' Let me say it again: Neanderthal!” He also called the Venezuelan bishops “a bunch of cavemen, in case you didn’t get it.”
The latest criticisms from Chavez came during a meeting with Socialist party leaders on the response from the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference to the president’s attacks on Cardinal Urosa.