"If negotiations like the ones mentioned are successful, great generosity and patience will be necessary, since the current crisis will not be resolved immediately, but multiple efforts and sacrifices will still be necessary on everyone’s part," he continued.
"I assure you of my prayers so that the meeting is fruitful and that, through the intercession of Blessed Dr. Hernández, all of us, with generosity of spirit, know how to put the good of our neighbor, the common good, above our personal interests," Cardinal Parolin said.
For several months, representatives of the Maduro regime and the opposition have been negotiating about setting up talks that could take place in August in Mexico, and could have the Norwegian government as an intermediary.
However, in recent days government officials came to the house of opposition leader Juan Guaidó with the intention of arresting him but were thwarted because his wife, Fabiana Rosales, got on Twitter to report it, causing neighbors to react and prevent his arrest.
While that was happening, former opposition assemblyman Freddy Guevara got a message out on Instagram from his car the moment he was surrounded by masked officials who took him into custody.
The government accuses Guevara of terrorism, treason, and criminal association, and his supposed ties to the death of 26 people in a Caracas neighborhood, who according to the government were part of gangs that sought to overthrow Maduro.
The accusations against Guevara - which his legal defense team has called as false - are for the government consistent with the conditions that Maduro set for talks to take place.
Maduro's conditions to go to Mexico are that the United States and the European Union lift all sanctions against Venezuela, that all political parties recognize the legitimacy of his government, and that “all sectors renounce violent plans with criminals, coups, the assassination of officials and other avenues of violence.”
On July 22, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, met with Guevara's family and collaborators, who informed him of the opposition leader’s "arbitrary arrest and his delicate state of health."
"We demand from the Venezuelan dictatorship full respect for his rights and his immediate release," Almagro said on Twitter.
Walter Sánchez Silva is a senior writer for ACI Prensa (https://www.aciprensa.com). With more than 15 years of experience, he has reported from important ecclesial events in Europe, Asia and Latin America during the pontificates of Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.
E-mail: walter@aciprensa.com