The Vatican and the local Church in Venezuela have responded with restraint and calls for prayer following a United States military intervention that led to the capture of the former de facto president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife.
In the early hours of 3 January, US forces carried out an operation in Caracas and other strategic areas of Venezuela, striking institutional and military targets.
Washington later confirmed that President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been detained and removed from the country.
The first public reaction from the Holy See came on Sunday morning during the Angelus prayer.
From the window of the Apostolic Palace, Pope Leo XIV addressed the situation without direct reference to the United States or the military action.
He said he was following “with concern the evolving situation in Venezuela” and expressed the hope that “the good of the beloved Venezuelan people prevail above all other considerations”.
The Pope called for respect for national sovereignty and for “the human and civil rights of each and every person”, urging efforts to build “a serene future of collaboration, stability, and harmony”.
Jesús González de Zárate, Archbishop of Valencia and president of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference, spoke as developments were still unfolding.
“We have been awake since 2:00 a.m., Venezuelan time, following what is happening. Let us accompany our people with prayer,” he said.
Later in the day, the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference issued a message addressed to the People of God, calling for calm and prayer.
The statement urged the faithful to live the present moment “with serenity, wisdom, and strength” and to persevere in prayer for unity.
The bishops expressed solidarity with those who had been injured and with families mourning those killed during the recent events.
They asked God to grant the Venezuelan people inner peace and spiritual strength, and called for the rejection of all forms of violence.
The message concluded by entrusting the country to the intercession of Our Lady of Coromoto.
Coverage of the intervention featured prominently in the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
The Saturday edition opened with reports of United States airstrikes on Caracas and other military installations.
The newspaper reported on the capture of the Venezuelan president and relayed the response of Caracas authorities, who described the events as a “very serious aggression” and denounced a violation of national sovereignty.
Diplomatic tensions were further highlighted by a formal statement issued by the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the Holy See on 3 January.
Signed by Ambassador Franklin M. Zeltzer Malpica, the document condemned what it described as a grave military aggression by the United States against civilian and military zones in Caracas, Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira.
The statement asserted that the intervention violated the United Nations Charter and posed a serious threat to international peace and stability, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.
It also announced the declaration of a state of external disturbance, which Venezuelan authorities said was intended to protect the population, safeguard republican institutions, and organise national defence.
The Apostolic Nunciature in Venezuela remained in contact with local bishops as the situation developed.
One of the central political questions raised by the removal of Maduro is whether moral authority can once again shape a fractured society when political authority has collapsed, or, more simply, whether and how the Venezuelan Church might fill the resulting power vacuum.
There is reason to expect that this may occur.
The Church in Venezuela is not marginal but widely respected, with a long record of mediating conflict.
Power vacuums are rarely filled only by armies or technocrats, but by institutions that command grassroots trust and moral credibility.
The removal of Maduro and the accompanying military action have left Venezuela facing a familiar but perilous moment: government institutions are weak, loyalties uncertain, and a population exhausted by years of economic repression and social breakdown.
History suggests that the Catholic Church in Venezuela has not remained on the margins in such circumstances. It has acted as a moral arbiter and, at times, an unacknowledged broker of political transition.
The present crisis again places the Church before a choice: whether to remain neutral and allow external actors to shape the outcome, or to assume the quiet but decisive role for which Venezuelan history has prepared it.
Since colonial times, the Church has been embedded in Venezuelan society not merely as a religious body, but as a formative presence shaping education, charity, and civic life.
Even after independence, Catholic institutions continued to provide coherence in a country marked by recurring instability.
The 1964 concordat, which formalised state support for Church-run education, reflected a broad understanding that the Church was indispensable to national life.
That spirit has endured despite repeated efforts by successive governments to weaken or marginalise ecclesial influence, particularly under Chavismo, the left-wing political ideology inspired by Hugo Chávez.
The rise of Chávez in the late 1990s inaugurated a more openly confrontational relationship between Church and state.
He frequently denounced bishops and clergy as enemies of the revolution, yet even at the height of his power he failed to erode the Church’s standing among Venezuelans.
This was evident in the events of 2002, when an attempted coup briefly removed him from office.
During that crisis, Church figures were not spectators but interlocutors.
The Church opposed Chávez and took part in negotiations over Venezuela’s future.
Chávez himself sought out Monsignor Baltazar Porras, now Cardinal Porras, asking for prayer and forgiveness.
This was not an isolated episode. From its opposition to the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship in the 1950s to resistance against Cuban intervention, the Church has functioned as a national conscience.
Its authority has rested less on formal power than on credibility earned through consistency and proximity to the suffering of the people.
This is why, when political institutions collapse, Venezuelans instinctively look not to parties or ideologies but to bishops, parishes, and Catholic charities.
The humanitarian dimension of the present crisis further underlines this reality.
As state services deteriorated over the past decade, Catholic charities such as Caritas stepped into the breach, providing food, healthcare, and basic social support to millions.
In many regions, Church networks became the only reliable means of assistance, creating a grassroots trust that no post-crisis government can afford to ignore.
In the aftermath of Maduro’s removal, these same networks now constitute a form of de facto governance in areas where the state is absent.
For all these reasons, the Church is uniquely positioned to help shape a post-Maduro transition, not by seizing political authority, but by anchoring it morally.
The response of Church leaders in recent days suggests an awareness of this responsibility.
Their words signal that the Church will not uncritically endorse any new order, but neither will it abandon a society in need of guidance.
Power does not belong only to those who command weapons or control oil revenues. It also belongs to those who shape moral life and sustain communal bonds.
The Venezuelan Church has done this for generations, often under hostile regimes, and is now perhaps better placed than any other institution to help hold the country together during a fragile transition.
The Church’s soft power is not a secondary asset but a central one. In moments of collapse, it becomes visible precisely because it is rooted in service rather than domination.
Venezuela’s crisis once again reveals that the Church’s greatest political contribution is not the pursuit of office, but the formation of conscience and the defence of human dignity when all else falters.
If the Church exercises this authority with courage and humility, the present vacuum may become not only a danger but an opportunity.
The task ahead is not for the Church to govern Venezuela, but to help Venezuela recover the moral foundations without which no political order can endure.