EWTN News reports that Cardinal Baltazar Porras, archbishop emeritus of Caracas, has called for “fraternity,” “forgiveness,” and “reconciliation” in post-Maduro Venezuela, explicitly rejecting what he termed “vengeance” while urging Venezuelans to “coexist” and find “shared solutions.” The prelate emphasized free elections, democracy, separation of powers, and freedom of expression as the path forward, invoking the words of John Paul II: “Do not speak to those in power, for they do not listen. Speak to the people.” He prayed that “the Lord and the Virgin bless the entire Venezuelan people.” This entire discourse, framed in the language of conciliar “fraternity” and naturalistic humanism, is a textbook example of the post-conciliar Church’s abandonment of the Social Kingship of Christ and its reduction of the Faith to mere humanitarian sentiment — a betrayal of everything the true Church taught through Pius XI, Pius IX, and the unbroken Magisterium.
The Absence of Christ the King in a “Christian” Cardinal’s Vision
The most glaring and damning omission in Cardinal Porras’ entire reflection is the complete absence of any mention of Christ the King and His absolute, public, and binding reign over Venezuela, over all nations, and over every aspect of civil society. This is not a minor oversight — it is the very essence of the conciliar apostasy. When Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King in Quas Primas (1925), he declared with unmistakable clarity:
> “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.”
And further:
> “The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations, both male and female, who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church and contribute most to the expansion and establishment of Christ’s Kingdom.”
Pius XI explicitly taught that rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him, and that the final judgment will severely avenge those who cast Christ out of the state. Yet Cardinal Porras speaks of “free elections,” “separation of powers,” “freedom of expression,” and “legal certainty for investors” — all purely naturalistic, liberal categories condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors — without once acknowledging that no political order can be just that does not explicitly recognize the sovereignty of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Pius IX condemned the proposition that “in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Proposition 77), and that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). Porras’ entire discourse is saturated with precisely this liberalism — a vision of democracy and human rights stripped of all supernatural foundation, exactly the error the true Church anathematized.
“Fraternity” Without the Faith: The Conciliar Substitute for Catholic Unity
Porras urges Venezuelans to “foster fraternity” and to “learn to be brothers and sisters,” speaking of “coexistence” and “friendship” as pathways toward “other expressions of love.” This is the language of the Masonic and revolutionary triad — Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité — baptized with a thin veneer of Christian terminology. True Catholic fraternity is not a natural sentiment; it is a supernatural virtue that flows from the unity of the Faith and membership in the Mystical Body of Christ. As Pius XI taught, peace is only possible in the Kingdom of Christ, and the Church alone is the dispenser of salvation.
The cardinal’s call for “fraternity” without any reference to the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Faith, without any mention of the sacraments, without any call for Venezuela to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart or to publicly profess Catholicism as its sole religion — this is not Catholic teaching. It is the false ecumenism and religious indifferentism that Pius IX condemned in Propositions 15-18 of the Syllabus, which taught that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” and that “good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.”
Justice Reduced to Amnesty: The Erasure of Moral Order
Porras discusses the amnesty law passed by Venezuelan lawmakers and the release of political prisoners, lamenting only the slowness of the process and the complicity of those in power. He states that freedom is “a matter of justice” and calls for “balance” in society. Yet he never once defines justice in Catholic terms — as the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due, rooted in the eternal law of God. He never mentions the necessity of repentance, of reparation for sins against God’s law, of the moral obligation of a Catholic state to legislate in accordance with divine and natural law.
The entire framework is one of horizontal, secular “justice” — balancing interests, managing transitions, ensuring “legal certainty for investors.” This is the language of liberal capitalism, not of Catholic social teaching. Where is the insistence that Venezuela’s laws must conform to the commandments of God? Where is the demand that the Catholic Church be recognized as the one true Church and that her rights be protected by the state? Where is the warning that without the grace of God and the sacraments, no political arrangement can produce true justice?
The Invocation of John Paul II: A Heretic Cited as Authority
Perhaps most revealing is Porras’ invocation of John Paul II: “Do not speak to those in power, for they do not listen. Speak to the people.” John Paul II was a manifest heretic and apostate who consecrated the conciliar revolution, embraced false religions at Assisi, kissed the Koran, and promoted the very religious indifferentism and false ecumenism that the true Church condemned. That a cardinal in the conciliar sect cites this apostate as an authority is entirely consistent with the nature of the post-conciliar structure — a structure that, as the sedevacantist position demonstrates through the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine, Wernz and Vidal, and Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code, has been devoid of true papal authority since the manifest heresy of John XXIII and his successors.
Bellarmine taught that “a Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” Wernz and Vidal confirmed that such a pope is deprived ipso facto of his jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence. The entire line from John XXIII onward — including John Paul II, whom Porras cites — are usurpers, and their words carry no authority in the true Church of Christ.
The Prayer That Reveals Everything
Porras concludes by praying: “May the Lord and the Virgin bless the entire Venezuelan people.” This formula — “the Lord and the Virgin” — is characteristic of the conciliar liturgical and devotional revolution, which systematically diminished the unique and supreme mediation of Christ in favor of a vague, humanitarian invocation. Where is the prayer for the conversion of Venezuela to the Catholic Faith? Where is the prayer for the Social Kingship of Christ to be recognized? Where is the prayer for the destruction of heresy and the triumph of the Church? Instead, we receive a bland, interfaith-compatible blessing that could equally come from a Protestant minister or a Masonic lodge.
Conclusion: The Bankruptcy of Conciliar “Pastoral” Discourse
Cardinal Porras’ remarks are a perfect specimen of the post-conciliar Church’s complete abandonment of its divine mission. In a nation ravaged by decades of socialist tyranny, where the faithful cry out for the restoration of order, justice, and the reign of Christ, the best the conciliar sect can offer is a program of liberal democracy, secular fraternity, amnesty without repentance, and economic development without supernatural foundation. This is the fruit of the conciliar revolution — a Church that speaks the language of the world, that has traded the Social Kingship of Christ for the “rights of man,” and that leads souls not toward eternal salvation but toward the ditch of naturalism and indifferentism.
The true Church teaches that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Pius XI, Ubi Arcano). Until Venezuela — and every nation — publicly recognizes Christ the King, submits its laws to the governance of the Catholic Church, and places the salvation of souls above the accumulation of riches and the gratification of pleasure, there will be no true peace, no true justice, and no true fraternity. There will only be, as we see in the words of Cardinal Porras, the empty humanitarianism of a Church that has betrayed its Divine Founder.
Source:
Cardinal Porras says new era in Venezuela after Maduro ‘is not about vengeance’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 09.04.2026