Caracas, Venezuela, Aug 2, 2010 / 15:55 pm
After Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez called Cardinal Jorge Urosa of Caracas a "neanderthal" and said that the Pope is not the ambassador of Christ on earth, Cardinal Urosa spoke before the country's National Assembly in a civil and measured way, confounding some lawmakers who predicted he would use aggressive and arrogant language.
The undersecretary of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference, Father Jose Gregorio Salazar, stated that “With Cardinal Urosa we have given a great lesson for the National Assembly. They thought he would address them with arrogant and aggressive language. They thought he would be insulted but nothing of the sort happened. We were prepared to speak before country or to do so in private, as happened,” he said.
The undersecretary noted the cardinal reminded lawmakers that “as a Venezuelan, he has to right to voice an opinion, and he made it clear, as St. Augustine said in his time, that with us he is Venezuelan but as pastor of the Church he is a cardinal. We cannot forget that his investiture (as a cardinal) corresponds to the dignity of a prince. And as such he spoke in a spirit of dialogue, with profound civility and absolute respect,” Father Salazar said.
“He reiterated his position with solid arguments and made it clear that he fears God and not men,” the priest continued. “When you pick on a cardinal, you are picking on the Church. The best part of his message was that once more he made it clear that we must treat each equally, whether we support Chavez or the opposition, because in the end we are all Venezuelans,” he added.