{"id":13250,"date":"2025-12-22T02:15:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T02:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13250"},"modified":"2025-12-22T02:15:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T02:15:45","slug":"venezuela-stops-cardinal-from-leaving-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13250","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela stops cardinal from leaving country"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u00a0(Photo: Facebook\/Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo)<\/span><\/p>\n

The Venezuelan government has prevented the former Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo, from leaving the country and has had his passport cancelled.<\/p>\n

The cardinal was set to fly to Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, on 10 December and then onto Toledo, Spain via Madrid. He was due to attend a ceremony in which he would be appointed the role of Spiritual Protector in the Order of Saint Lazarus in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Travelling with Cardinal Porras Cardozo were Jos\u00e9 Antonio Rodr\u00edguez, Grand Prior of the Order of Saint Lazarus, and the Grand Prior\u2019s wife. While the Grand Prior and his wife were permitted to embark on their journey, Venezuelan officials told Cardinal Porras Cardozo he would be arrested if he insisted on travelling.<\/p>\n

According to the Order, the cardinal\u2019s belongings were searched, and he was subjected to \u201chumiliating\u201d treatment. No official explanation has been given for Cardinal Porras Cardozo\u2019s treatment, although it is almost certainly the result of his criticism of the Venezuelan government.<\/p>\n

In October Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro accused the cardinal of being part of a conspiracy following his denunciation of human rights violations and the increasing militarisation of Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The government subsequently warned the Catholic Church in Venezuela against allowing the cardinal to attend Mass in the town of Isnot\u00fa and even deployed military forces to prevent him reaching the town.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anna Lee Stangl, Director of Advocacy and Americas Team Leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), said, \u201cCSW is highly alarmed at the Venezuelan authorities\u2019 increasing efforts to restrict the freedom of movement of Cardinal Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo, who has clearly been targeted because of his criticism of the government\u2019s violations of human rights.<\/p>\n

“We echo the call of the Order of Saint Lazarus for the authorities to return and reinstate Cardinal Porras Cardozo\u2019s passport, and to permit him to travel freely to Bogot\u00e1.\u201d<\/p>\n

CSW also condemned a separate incident in which unknown people vandalised the\u00a0Cuasia\u00a0Church in San Juan de\u00a0los\u00a0Morros in October.<\/p>\n

The vandals left graffiti threatening the life of the church\u2019s priest, Fr Juan Manuel Le\u00f3n, who has also spoken out against human rights abuses in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Photo: Facebook\/Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo) The Venezuelan government has prevented the former Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo, from leaving the country and has had his passport cancelled. The cardinal was set to fly to Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, on 10 December and then onto Toledo, Spain via Madrid. He was due to attend a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[3795,2002,1381,2822,2199],"class_list":{"0":"post-13250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-cardinal","9":"tag-country","10":"tag-leaving","11":"tag-stops","12":"tag-venezuela"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}