Earlier this month, Venezuelan Cardinal Baltazar Porras was supposed to fly to Madrid to accept his appointment as the spiritual protector of the Order of St. Lazarus, an ancient Catholic organization. But his trip ended before it really began.
When Porras arrived at the airport in Caracas, Venezuelan authorities moved quickly to detain him and take away his travel documents. The cardinal sat through two hours of questioning before being forced to sign a form acknowledging that he was now banned from leaving Venezuela because he attempted to fly on a Vatican passport. Once the interrogation ended, officials simply dropped off the elderly religious leader at the baggage claim.
The incident came amid a snowballing crisis between the Venezuelan government and the Catholic Church. Years of economic mismanagement and foreign sanctions have left the regime of President Nicolas Maduro on the verge of collapse, and Maduro has responded with a tightening crackdown on any and all forms of dissent. Local Catholic leaders have become increasingly outspoken about these abuses, and many of the faithful are now prepared to do anything to put a stop to them — even if that means accepting a U.S. military intervention.
The situation has created a profound early challenge for Pope Leo XIV. The soft-spoken clergyman, known to few outside the Vatican prior to his election in May, is grappling with what it means to be the first ever American pope just as his home nation edges closer to open war with a majority Catholic country. So far, he has attempted to maintain a delicate balancing act, urging all parties to prioritize dialogue while avoiding any sharp critiques of the Trump administration or the Maduro regime. But this careful approach has done little to slow either Maduro’s crackdown on the church or the U.S. march toward conflict.
As the drumbeat of war grows louder, Leo may well face a consequential choice. Will he loudly condemn escalation, possibly endangering the church in Venezuela as well as his relationship with the U.S. government? Or will he maintain a relatively quiet posture — one that would better allow him to support mediation behind the scenes?
Whatever he decides could reverberate across the region, according to Massimo Faggioli, a prominent Catholic columnist and professor at Trinity College Dublin. “What happens in Venezuela could send a message to other countries where the Catholic church in Latin America is more and more under pressure by local strongmen,” Faggioli said, citing Nicaragua in particular. “If Venezuela turns [out] a certain way, that could send a different kind of message to the whole continent.”
An American pope, whether he likes it or not
It’s been a long time since the Holy See was the dominant force in Western politics. But even in the modern world, it pays to have the pope in your corner.
The Vatican may not have military or trade interests, but it retains a surprising degree of influence in international institutions, thanks in no small part to its crack corps of diplomat-priests, who receive extensive training in mediation and other useful diplomatic tactics. This skillset has helped the Holy See play a key role in deescalating conflicts, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and a civil war in South Sudan.
It doesn’t hurt that the pope retains a remarkable level of soft power, exemplified most clearly by the way in which global media still hangs on the pontiff’s every word. As Faggioli put it, “if you want to talk to the world, talking to the Vatican is a very good step.”
Leo has only begun to come to terms with the extraordinary role he now holds as a religious leader-cum-head of state. In many ways, he has followed the path of Pope Francis, urging the international community to fight the scourges of global poverty and war while offering to mediate conflicts like the war in Ukraine. Like Francis, who was Argentinian, Leo developed many of his views while serving as a clergyman in Latin America. But the similarities only go so far.
While Francis would often speak off the cuff about global affairs, Leo has leaned instead on carefully worded speeches crafted with the help of his diplomatic corps. While Francis excoriated NATO for “barking at the gates of Russia” prior to the war in Ukraine, Leo has focused his criticism on the Trump administration’s attempts to “break apart” the alliance between Europe and the U.S.
“My impression is that his view of the world is quite typical of a Catholic born in post-World War II America,” Faggioli said. Leo has a “pre-Trumpian” view of the West, he argued. “Not a neocon but very distant from Trumpism [and] also very distant from Francis' anti-Yankee and anti-North American, anti-NATO view.”
Pope Leo has tried to stay out of his home country’s politics. But differences of opinion with the Trump administration have complicated this approach. Just prior to his own election, Leo appeared to criticize JD Vance for his comments on Trump’s immigration policies in which the Vice President referenced a Catholic tenet of obligation derived from the writings of St. Augustine: “that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”
Leo responded by re-posting an article from a Catholic publication with the headline: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
“He's a little bit more modest in his approach to things [than Francis was], unless it comes to something that's very close to the core of the gospel,” said Rev. David Hollenbach, a senior fellow at Georgetown University.
Despite these differences, Pope Leo could be a powerful partner for the United States, assuming that President Donald Trump is willing to work with him. The new pontiff has placed a particular emphasis on working through his professional diplomatic corps, which could provide invaluable support for Trump’s efforts to stop foreign wars (and avoid new ones, like in Venezuela).
“Now we see Pope Leo really putting some of the best people he has available in place,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, an international law professor at Notre Dame University.
“There are so many conflicts that are in need of new talent for diplomatic solutions,” O’Connell told RS. “He can bring in people who can move [Ukraine talks] forward.”
A problem from hell
Like many Catholic problems, the crisis between Maduro and the church has played out through a debate over the saints. At an October event marking the canonization of two Venezuelan saints, Cardinal Porras lamented the state of affairs in Venezuela, citing in particular the “growth of poverty, militarization as a form of government to incite violence, corruption and lack of autonomy of public powers, and the disrespect of the people’s will.”
A few days later, back in Rome, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin made unusually pointed remarks to a gathering that included a delegation of Venezuelan government officials in the front row. “Listen to the words of the Lord, who calls you to open unjust prisons, to break the chains of oppression, to set the oppressed free,” Parolin said. Tensions came to a head a few days later when the church suddenly cancelled a 50,000 person mass in Caracas meant to celebrate the new saints, out of fears that Maduro would turn the event into an impromptu rally for his embattled regime, according to The Pillar, a Catholic news site.
Parolin’s role highlights the careful balancing act that Pope Leo is hoping to maintain as the crisis in Venezuela deepens. Unlike Francis, Leo has collaborated closely with Parolin, who has extensive experience as a Vatican diplomat, including a stint as the Holy See’s ambassador in Venezuela. “The pope supports Parolin when Parolin says something because of course he knew that he was going to say that,” Faggioli said. “That gives more stability and more credibility. Being predictable in Vatican diplomacy is a great asset.”
As Venezuelan authorities have increased their pressure on the local church, Leo has been reluctant to take further actions, at least in public. “In secret, there's a lot going on, but in public that [pressure] limits your options,” Faggioli told RS.
This caution extends to Leo’s approach to Washington. While he has called for deescalation, he has done so infrequently and with little of the gusto that accompanied Pope Francis’ declarations on issues of war and peace. Victor Gaetan, the author of a recent book on Vatican diplomacy, said many see Leo’s comments as “rather modest and not sufficiently forceful” compared to the scale of the threat, and the possible repercussions of an invasion.
Leo has also yet to publicly offer up the Holy See as a mediator between America and Venezuela. But that doesn’t necessarily give an indication of what’s happening behind closed doors. The pope has a close relationship with the clergy in Venezuela, forged during his two decades working as a bishop in Peru. And he has a natural relationship with the U.S. given his American citizenship and popularity in the country. So he could be working to deescalate the situation and avoid war, as the church did in Panama in 1989, when it allowed President Manuel Noriega to briefly take refuge in its embassy in order to avoid further bloodshed.
All of the Vatican watchers who spoke with RS expect that Leo would sharpen his tone if the U.S. mounts a full-scale invasion. In the meantime, the American-Peruvian pontiff will have little choice but to encourage dialogue, both in and out of the public eye. The logic here is simple: The Vatican “believes that as long as you’re talking, you’re not shooting,” said Fr. Thomas Reese, a senior analyst at Religion News Service.
“The Vatican doesn’t have any magic answers for war and peace,” Reese said. “But what it does do is raise the moral issues and just beg people to try another way than war.” In other words, Pope Leo can provide an off-ramp — but only Trump and Maduro can decide whether to take it.
