Catholic Church in Venezuela

The Roman Catholic Church in Venezuela comprises nine archdioceses, three vicariates, a military ordinariate, and two Eastern Rite exarchates under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, the Curia in Rome and the Venezuelan Bishops Conference.

[3] In the past, the Catholic Church did not have the funds, the personnel, or the enthusiasm to stem effectively this new challenge to its hegemony, but it believed it faced a greater threat with the new government of Hugo Chavez.

In 2007, Cardinal Jorge Urosa, the Archbishop of Caracas, called for peaceful demonstrations against any direct government involvement in overseeing the Church's administration of schools.

In addition, that the Spanish clergy, in general, sided with their mother country rather than with the forces of independence, did not endear the church to the early Venezuelan patriots.

[citation needed] In 1515 Cumaná was the first European settlement founded in South America by Franciscans and Dominicans, but the monks there were being harassed by indigenous people and Spaniards operating slave raids from the nearby island of Cubagua.

[citation needed] Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the ranking clergy had close ties with the governing conservative oligarchy, and the church played a dominant role in the educational system.

Roman Catholic laymen played a prominent role in the founding of COPEI (Social Christian Party) in 1946, and the announced disapproval of the church contributed to the fall of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958.

[9] The Episcopal Conference of Venezuela rejected Luis Parra's claim to the presidency of the National Assembly during a disrupted Board of Directors internal election on 5 January 2020.