Christmas 2024: Bishops of Venezuela ask to live hope

In Venezuela, the bishops have recalled the importance of living the Christmas and New Year season with hope, despite the complicated social and political situation that the country is going through.

Mons. Carlos Curiel, Bishop of Carora and president of the Episcopal Education Commission of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference (CEV), pointed out that Christmas celebrations should lead us to “recover the centrality” of the Christian message in our lives, because it is capable of transforming hearts into ones “open to his will, to his project of love.”

Likewise, he highlighted the joy that should overwhelm every believer for the birth of the Child Jesus, which “must last all year, to be a new impulse so that we can go through the year 2025 with hope. May we travel through it with faith based on that Jesus Christ who is the Way, Truth and Life; under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”

That same child from Bethlehem, he added, “walks today and always (with us) and gives us back hope, which we have often lost due to the circumstances of life.”

Another prelate, Mons. Alfredo Torres, head of the diocese of San Fernando de Apurewished all Venezuelans at Christmas “a profound experience of the immense love of God the Father when he sent us his Son and was incarnated in the very pure womb of the Most Holy Mary.”

“Christmas is nothing other than the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, blessing and salvation for all humanity,” he added. Furthermore, he asked that in all homes, filled with “family warmth”, this time – of fraternity and reconciliation – be lived without ceasing to ask the Father incessantly for “peace and concord” in Venezuela and the entire world.

“Do not stop attending, with fervor, your parish communities, to be able to experience in fraternity the new encounter with those who have come to stay with us forever: God with us, pilgrims of hope,” concluded Mons. Torres.

Venezuela awaiting the political situation

Christmas days in Venezuela are marked by political tension that does not let up. The opposition candidate for the presidential elections held on July 28, Edmundo González Urrutia, has stressed on numerous occasions his intention to return to the country to take office as president on January 10.

González Urrutia, together with María Corina Machado, leader of the opposition, has claimed victory in the elections by an overwhelming majority, a result that contrasts with the figures presented by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which gave the winner to leader of the Chavista regime, Nicolás Maduro. Both the opposition and a large part of the international community question the veracity of the result.

Since September, González Urrutia has been in exile in Spain and María Corina Machado is in hiding, as she has commented, within the country. This September 23, the opposition candidate insisted that he will not reveal “neither the day nor the manner” in which he will return to the country with the intention of taking office as president.

Furthermore, he specified that he has “no restrictions” on returning to Venezuela, and added that he “absolutely” fears being detained if he returns to Caracas. For his part, the former Spanish president, Felipe González, asked the government of Spain to help González Urrutia to return:

“Let Spain say: Edmundo González is the elected president of Venezuela and is at your disposal to offer him the necessary means to make his offer to agree on a transition after recognizing the results (of the elections) effective,” he stated.

Maduro, according to the former Spanish president, whose statements are collected by the EFE agency, “has lost the elections, knows that he has no legitimacy and has become an arbitrary tyrant.”