ROME - (AP) -- Fidel Castro may not be a believer, but he's a Christian in a certain sense, according to his close friend, Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez.
Speaking to IRNA on the sidelines of the EU-Latin America Summit, Chavez said, "We pray to `Allah' that no war would be launched against Iran!"
The Venezuelan President added, "We believe the Iranian nation's campaign is our own nation's, and we ask the world countries to respect Iran's independence."
He concluded stressing, "We are on the side of the Iranian nation and pray for President Ahmadinejad."
Just this past weekend, at the mass concluding the consultation, i was offering prayers, as were several Cardinals, to Allah. Nary a Muslim in sight. Why? One of the aspects of the consultation concerned Arab Christians (there are 35 million of them) who refer to God as Allah. In Germany, where i have also prayed, the Lord is referred to as Herr. Not everyone prays in English.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
At the same time, Chávez is driving his country into the ground. A tragicomic symbol of this was the collapse of the highway from Caracas to the Maiquetía airport a few months ago because of lack of maintenance. Venezuela's poverty figures and human development indices have deteriorated since 1999, when Chávez took office. A simple comparison with Mexico -- which has not exactly thrived in recent years -- shows how badly Venezuela is faring. Over the past seven years, Mexico's economy grew by 17.5 percent, while Venezuela's failed to grow at all. From 1997 to 2003, Mexico's per capita GDP rose by 9.5 percent, while Venezuela's shrank by 45 percent. From 1998 to 2005, the Mexican peso lost 16 percent of its value, while the value of the Venezuelan bolivar dropped by 292 percent. Between 1998 and 2004, the number of Mexican households living in extreme poverty decreased by 49 percent, while the number of Venezuelan households in extreme poverty rose by 4.5 percent. In 2005, Mexico's inflation rate was estimated at 3.3 percent, the lowest in years, while Venezuela's was 16 percent.
Although Chávez does very little for the poor of his own country (among whom he remains popular), he is doing much more for other countries: giving oil away to Cuba and other Caribbean states, buying Argentina's debt, allegedly financing political campaigns in Bolivia and Peru and perhaps Mexico. He also frequently picks fights with Fox and Bush and is buying arms from Spain and Russia. This is about as close to traditional Latin American populism as one can get -- and as far from a modern and socially minded left as one can be.
Amazing how Latin America keeps making the same foolish mistakes over and over again. I remember in geography class some 40 years ago, Latin America, especially South America was the land of the future. The was no doubt that the Lima, Rio, Caracas, Montevideo, et al. of the future would be like the New York, Paris, and London of the 60s. Man, would that have been a bad bet!
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
The Religious Left begins its embrace of Hugo Chávez. by Mark D. Tooley
WHEN VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT HUGO CH VEZ met with the Pope earlier this week, he assured Benedict XVI that he is a Christian. And he told the press that has a special friend who is one too. Sort of.
"Our Bolivarian revolution is very Christian and I have a friend who isn't Christian, but lately has said he is a Christian in the social aspect: his name is Fidel Castro," Chávez announced. "I talk to [Castro] a lot about Christ each time we see each other, and he told me recently, 'Chávez, I'm Christian in the social sense.'"
Chávez calls Jesus Christ a socialist and a revolutionary. And that's the kind of Christ he wants to follow. It is not clear how much the Pope was persuaded. The Vatican has criticized efforts by Chávez's revolutionary government to curtail the influence of the Catholic Church in Venezuela. Chávez has called the Catholic Church's hierarchy a "tumor," while Venezuelan Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara has accused Chávez of aspiring towards a dictatorship.
It will be no surprise if we soon see left-wing American clerics investing Chávez with a mystical reverence previously reserved for the likes of Fidel Castro and, during the 1980s, Sandinista honcho Daniel Ortega. Indeed, the canonization of Chávez in some quarters has already begun.
This message has been edited by Mornac on May 18, 2006 10:47 PM
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
Thug Spring, A.P. Journalist (Login MountainSpring) Member
"Chávez calls Jesus Christ a socialist and a revolutionary."
No score for this post
May 18 2006, 10:02 PM
"Jesus Christ Responds to Hugo Chavez's Comments
May 18 3:41 PM US/Eastern
By The Associated Press
Jesus Christ responded to Hugo Chavez's recent allegations in an official press release today. Christ stated, "Chavez a delusional lunatic. His charge that I am a socialist and revolutionary would be outright hilarious if this wasn't a clear case of blasphemy. I haven't heard anything this comical and wrong since JohnHP came up with that whole 'mighty act in defense of an ethical ideal' thing."
Jesus also amended his stoning policy from "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone" to "I've got a throwing rock with Hugo's name on it, who wants to join me?"
Being on the front lines of the Catholic left in the 1980s, i recall supporting the Sandinistas against the illegal acts of the Reagan Administration, but i recall no hagiography of Mr Ortega. i do recall pictures of those martyred by the varuious regimes propped up by our foreign policy from well before mr Reagan:
His Excellency Archbishop Oscar Romaro, Servant of GOd, who was murdered while consecrating the Eucharist
Fr Rutilio Grande
The funeral of Fr Grande
And of course the Jesuit Martyrs
Sister Maura Clark MM, Sister Ita Ford MM, Sister Dorothy Kazel and the lay missionary Jean Donovan
