SÃO PAULO (RNS) — Once hailed by evangelical Christian leaders of different stripes for his support of their churches, Venezuela’s former President Nicolás Maduro, currently awaiting trial in a Brooklyn jail along with his wife, Cilia Flores, has apparently lost most of his Christian backers in his native country.
While evangelical groups have come out for pro-Maduro demonstrations since Jan. 3, when U.S. troops bombed Caracas and other locations and abducted Maduro and Flores, most churches have remained silent, and most Christian leaders have not issued public statements. At least one evangelical movement has opted to leave the movement known as Chavismo, whose name is a nod to its founder and Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
Since Chávez took office in 1999, the Venezuelan government and the Catholic Church, whose followers make up least 63% of the population, have famously warred over autonomy and alleged political interference, beginning with the constitution approved shortly after Chávez assumed power. It removed privileges historically enjoyed by the church and established freedom of worship and religion, and was received by many Catholics as a direct blow to its hegemony.
“This way, we finally could have access to schools and universities. He expanded our social space,” said Bishop Gamaliel Lugo, of the Venezuelan Evangelica …