Cardinal Porras detained, barred from leaving Venezuela
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Nicolás Maduro
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The Venezuelan president is central to this conflict with Cardinal Porras. Understanding his rise to power, his contested 2018 and 2024 elections, and his authoritarian tactics provides essential context for why clergy are being detained and silenced.
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José Gregorio Hernández
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The article revolves around tensions sparked by this Venezuelan doctor-saint's canonization. His remarkable story—a physician who treated the poor for free in early 20th century Venezuela and became a beloved folk saint—explains why his canonization became such a politically charged event.
Cardinal Baltazar Porras, one of the staunchest clerical critics of the Venezuelan regime, was briefly detained by police and had his passport annulled after he tried to board a flight on Dec. 10.
The cardinal was informed that he has been banned from leaving the country.
Sources close to the cardinal told The Pillar that Porras, the archbishop emeritus of Caracas, went to the Simón Bolívar International Airport near Caracas on Wednesday to board a flight to Madrid. He was expected to take part in a ceremony at which he would be appointed Protector of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem.
Pressure and threats against Porras have increased since October, when he called the situation in Venezuela “morally unacceptable” during a conference in Rome ahead of the canonization of the first two Venezuelan saints. Rumors about his possible arrest had circulated on social media in recent months, and he was prevented by Venezuelan authorities from boarding a flight within the country in late October.
“Earlier today, police at the airport detained him for two hours, threatened him, and even brought the drug detection dogs to check him,” a source close to Porras told The Pillar.
“They annulled his Venezuelan passport, and didn’t allow him to board the flight despite the fact that he also has a Vatican passport. Authorities say you have to leave the country with a Venezuelan passport if you’re a Venezuelan national with a second nationality, but his passport was annulled on the spot, so he couldn’t leave,” the source added.
The cardinal’s phone was taken away during the two-hour detention and he was not allowed to alert anyone of the situation, sources said. Venezuelan authorities verbally notified Porras that he was formally banned from leaving the country until further notice.
In a statement sent out to Venezuelan bishops and obtained by The Pillar, Porras said that a Venezuelan official informed him in the airport that he appeared as “deceased” in the passport system, and then was told that there were “problems” with his passport.
The cardinal said a member of the Venezuelan military informed him that he was not allowed to travel and refused to give him his passport back.
Porras said that he was forced to sign a document saying that he banned from traveling due to “non-compliance with
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