Two priests, closely linked to "Progressive" political groups (i.e. Hugo Chávez), celebrate a "People's Mass" on the day of a traditional local feast in defiance of their Bishops. The Bishops suspend the priests until they apologize for their disobedience. A dispute to be solved within the Church, right?
Not in that new Socialist haven, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The standoff between Fathers Máximo Ochoa and Edmundo Cadenas and their Bishops (Ramón José Viloria Pinzón, Bishop of Puerto Cabello, and Nelson Antonio Martínez Rust, Bishop of San Felipe) became a matter of national concern this week as Venezuelans watched a national broadcast of a legislative session which included the approval of a resolution against the Bishops by the National Assembly (where most seats are held by allies of President Hugo Chávez).
Fathers Ochoa and Cadenas visited the National Assembly on May 14 and testified against their Bishops: “We have done no crime in order to apologize. We would rather walk along with the simple folk, our people, according to Liberation Theology, than with the dominating class. The reprisal happened [for choosing] to lead a Christian life and for the preferential option for the poor."
“The Bishops suspend us, but the people absolve us,” they added.
In the broadcast, the President of National Assembly, “exhort[ed] the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to follow the democratic and social justice principles of our Constitution, openly violated with the absurd political decision which threaten freedom of worship and the practices of the faithful who, year after year, take part in the Mass of the Blessing of the Sea in Puerto Cabello". [Source.]
