Venezuelan Christians in the United States have been looking to their faith and to one another as emotions run high and uncertainty grows after the U.S. capture of deposed leader Nicolás Maduro, according to Associated Press.
Faith leaders who minister to Christians in Venezuela and to Venezuelan diaspora communities in the U.S. urged prayers for peace as congregations responded to what AP described as high emotions and uncertainty tied to Maduro’s removal.
In Venezuela, AP reported that initial statements from the Catholic bishops’ conference and the Evangelical Council of Venezuela were cautious, appealing for calm and patience. In the diaspora, AP said many pastors welcomed Maduro’s ouster and shifted quickly to pastoral messaging amid anxious congregations.
In South Florida, where many Venezuelans have settled, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski said there was an anxiousness about what comes next but that the Catholic Church has a role to help the country move forward. “People are happy because Maduro is out, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty,” Wenski told AP. He added that for Venezuelans in the U.S. who have lost temporary protective status, “they’re anxious about returning unless there is a real change of the political and social situation in the country.”
AP said the Trump administration had ended two federal programs since the start of February that together allowed more than 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S., a change Wenski’s comments reflected as part of the atmosphere in diaspora communities. The AP report described how some Venezuelans have arrived in the U.S. after years of displacement, including by walking through Colombia and Panama or flying on humanitarian parole with a financial sponsor.
Wenski also tied the church’s posture to its history with successive Venezuelan governments, saying he hoped conditions would improve now that Maduro has been ousted. He recalled that “There have been over the years great tensions between the Maduro and Chavez regimes with the Catholic Church,” referring to Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, and said “the church is perhaps the only institution that is independent of the government, that can speak quite courageously about the situation in the country.”
He said he thought the church should “continue to speak up for democracy, but at the same time be patient, to be calm,” and he described the church’s mission during a polarized period as reconciliation. “The church is always promoting reconciliation and certainly given the polarization in Venezuela over these years … the church has to be a voice urging reconciliation between the different factions and the different political opinions or political parties in the country.”
AP reported that Wenski cited recent actions against church leadership, including that Cardinal Baltazar Porras, the archbishop emeritus of Caracas and a critic of the Maduro government, recently had his passport confiscated by Venezuelan immigration officials and was banned from traveling abroad.
In Doral, a Miami suburb nicknamed “Little Venezuela” or “Doralzuela” for its large Venezuelan population, AP said many people prayed for the future of Venezuela during Sunday services the day after Maduro was captured. The Rev. Israel Mago of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Doral told worshippers to pray for “a fair and peaceful transition in Venezuela, so peace and justice can reign,” and he invited the congregation to join a special afternoon vigil to pray for justice in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
AP also described a contrast in how some evangelical leaders framed the moment. In Doral, the Rev. Frank López of Jesus Worship Center began his Sunday sermon “congratulating” the Venezuelan people and thanking God for President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He told the cheering congregation, “It’s time that in America, starting with Venezuela and may it continue with Cuba too, the glory and freedom might be manifested that Christ bought for you, for me, on the cross at Calvary.” The report said the church’s congregation counts more than 3,000 members from over 40 nationalities.
In Philadelphia, AP reported that Venezuelan community members gathered for a special Sunday service at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. The event was organized by Casa de Venezuela and other Venezuelan nonprofits, and participants brought Venezuelan flags and prayer beads or wore jerseys of the national soccer team.
Arianne Bracho, vice president of Casa de Venezuela Philadelphia, told AP that they wanted to hold the gathering at the church so people would feel “comfortable, protected,” and she described it as “a space of reconciliation.” As a baptized but nonpracticing Catholic, Bracho said she still felt compelled to pray, calling the service emotional and describing it as “a gathering to reaffirm our hope, our faith, to call on tranquility and calm.” She said, in Spanish, that “the house of God, whichever religion it might be, is the right place.”
AP reported that Bracho said most of her family has been living abroad—from “Japan to Colombia”—because of Venezuela’s political and economic crises. She said she felt conflicted: “I’m convulsed; I have mixed feelings,” and added that it was tough seeing the country “being bombed.” She said removing Maduro was necessary for “drug crimes and human rights violations,” and she told AP that “What was clear to me…is that we all have faith that this will end.”