Venezuelan newspapers were ablaze yesterday with reports on the seemingly traitorous actions of Venezuela's Archbishop, Baltazar Porras, who heads the Council of Bishops of Venezuela.
A WikiLeaks document (See Cable) from January, 2005, details a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas on January 6, 2005, by Porras, the highest serving Catholic bishop in Venezuela, Archbishop of Venezuela. Porras sought the help of then U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield and his government in "containing the aspirations" of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez.
To this end, the Archbishop offered the U.S. government the use of the Catholic church's infrastructure and programs within Venezuela, and especially those within the barrio or ghetto areas, to strengthen the fight against Chavez and his Bolivarian socialism.
Archbishop Porras told the U.S. Ambassador that the U.S. must be "more explicit" in its criticisms of Chavez, who he referred to as a "large problem" that must be "dealt with rapidly".
