Venezuela’s Defense Minister says canonizations grant a “spiritual shield”

Caracas.- Venezuela’s Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López, said on Sunday that the canonization of doctor José Gregorio Hernández and religious figure Carmen Rendiles grants a “spiritual shield” to the country against “the threats” that seek to break the “unity”. “Faced with threats that seek to break our unity, the heavens grant us a spiritual shield: an armor of faith that strengthens our mission to defend independence and preserve the integrity of the homeland,” the official noted in a message posted on Telegram. In the minister’s opinion, the canonization is more than a recognition, “it is a prophetic message of peace”. “In a world fragmented by the culture of discarding, these two saints show us the path of the culture of encounter: he, healing with love; she, educating in truth and charity,” he added. Godfather López asked that the peace that inhabited the hearts of Hernández and Rendiles, “be poured out over Venezuela and over the whole world”. Pope Leo XIV led the canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, where nearly 55,000 people gathered, according to local authorities, including a large presence of Venezuelans, who were noticeable for the large number of their country’s flags and shirts with images of the new saints.

You can read: Pope Leo XIV canonizes the “doctor of the poor”, José Gregorio Hernández, first saint of Venezuela

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, parishioners flocked to the main squares of different cities to celebrate the event, in a country that has been experiencing increasing tension with the U.S. for weeks amid its prolonged political crisis. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro asserted this Sunday that the canonization of Hernández and Rendiles vindicates the “true” identity of Venezuelans. Maduro said, on the state-owned channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), that the “tongue” of those who “xenophobically attack” and say “barbarities” about the South American country will fall, “because God’s blessings are upon Venezuela”.