Venezuela’s Persecuted Church: A Crisis of Modernist Compromise

The EWTN News article (January 1, 2026) reports on potential increased persecution against the Catholic Church in Venezuela under the Maduro regime. The piece cites Venezuelan bishops’ December 2025 Christmas message describing national turmoil, economic collapse, and political tensions with the United States. Analysts including political scientist Víctor Maldonado and Nicaraguan researcher Martha Patricia Molina compare Venezuela’s situation to Nicaragua’s religious persecution, warning of impending crackdowns. The article notes the regime’s promotion of Santería and Protestantism while exploiting division between faithful prelates and regime-aligned clergy like Jesuit “Fr.” Numa Molina. Marcela Szymanski of “Aid to the Church in Need” describes autocrats’ tactics against religious leaders, urging resilience through prayer despite institutional vulnerability.

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The Naturalistic Reduction of Persecution

The analysis commits a fundamental error by framing persecution through exclusively sociological lenses while omitting its theological dimension. Quas Primas (Pius XI, 1925) establishes that “nations will be happy only when they heed the Church’s teaching and commandments concerning Christ’s reign” (§19). The article’s exclusive focus on geopolitical factors ignores how Venezuela’s persecution stems directly from rejecting the Social Kingship of Christ. By reducing the conflict to mere political struggle rather than spiritual warfare against regnum Mariae, the analysis embraces the very naturalism condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864): “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Proposition 39).

Cardinal Baltazar Porras, archbishop emeritus of Caracas, was perhaps the most prominent voice in the Church criticizing the situation in Venezuela

This praise of Porras exemplifies the modernist inversion of priorities. A prelate’s legitimacy derives not from political opposition but fidelity to Catholic Tradition. Porras, elevated under Paul VI’s new rites, participates in the conciliar church’s destruction of true doctrine – his “criticism” focuses on humanitarian concerns while avoiding denunciation of socialism’s intrinsic evils. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1399) explicitly condemns socialism, yet nowhere does the article mention the Church’s perennial teaching that “no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist” (Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, §120).

The Silence That Condemns

Graver than the article’s omissions are its silences regarding supernatural realities:

1. No mention of Eucharistic sacrilege: When Maduro’s regime inevitably desecrates churches, will “bishops” protect the Blessed Sacrament or surrender it to profanation?
2. No warning about invalid sacraments: The article ignores whether Venezuelan clergy use valid rites or the invalid Novus Ordo Missae fabricated in 1969.
3. No distinction between true and false religion: Equating Santería (a syncretic pagan cult) with Protestant sects as mere “alternatives” to Catholicism constitutes the indifferentism condemned in Lamentabili Sane (1907): “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Proposition 20).

The Venezuelan bishops’ call for “pluralistic religious expression” directly contradicts Mortalium Animos (Pius XI, 1928): “This false opinion, which considers all religions more or less good and praiseworthy, contradicts the Catholic faith, which professes that the Catholic religion alone is true.” Their silence on the duty to eradicate false worship reveals complicity with the regime’s anti-Catholic agenda.

Conciliar Ecclesiology’s Poisonous Fruits

The article unwittingly documents how Vatican II’s heresies enable persecution:

The bishops’ goal is for everyone in Venezuela to be able to “live in harmony and peace” and for the country to have “the conditions of freedom, work, and pluralistic religious expression”

This statement by “Abp.” González de Zárate epitomizes the conciliar betrayal. Contrast this with Pius IX’s condemnation: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 80). True shepherds would demand Venezuela’s submission to Christ the King, not beg for “pluralistic expression” from God’s enemies.

The article’s reference to Szymanski’s advice – “resilience, hope, and a life of prayer are what no one can take away” – rings hollow without reference to sacramental grace. Nowhere does it mention that Venezuelans risk spiritual starvation from clergy ordained with invalid rites after 1968. When “Aid to the Church in Need” promotes post-conciliar “resilience,” it ignores how the new sacraments cannot confer sanctifying grace – the true wellspring of perseverance.

The False Dichotomy of “Good” vs. “Bad” Prelates

The article creates a dangerous narrative that some bishops resist persecution while others collaborate. This ignores that all post-conciliar hierarchs participate in apostasy by their very office. As the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope or a member of the Church” (St. Robert Bellarmine). When “Cardinal” Porras and “Abp.” González claim to lead the Church while accepting Vatican II’s heresies, they become wolves regardless of political stance.

The Nicaraguan researcher’s warning – “the dictatorship will focus its fury against the prelates” – misses the true crisis: These modernist prelates long ago surrendered the Faith. When Molina praises Nicaraguan bishops being “united alongside the unprotected,” she ignores their adherence to the same conciliar errors that enabled Ortega’s rise. Persecution becomes divine chastisement for hierarchy who abandoned Catholic Tradition.

Conclusion: The Martyrdom That Matters

The Venezuelan situation reveals the conciliar church’s terminal crisis. When analysts worry about churches closing rather than sacrileges committed, about political prisoners rather than souls endangered by invalid sacraments, they prove their naturalistic blindness. True Catholics in Venezuela must:

1. Reject all sacraments from clergy ordained in new rites
2. Recognize no authority in conciliar-appointed “bishops”
3. Preach Christ’s Social Kingship despite persecution

As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony” (§19). Until Venezuelans fight for this supernatural vision rather than political compromise, their suffering remains spiritually fruitless.

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Source:
Church in Venezuela could undergo more persecution in 2026, experts say   (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 01.01.2026