8 Jan 2021
ROME Pope Francis has reached out to the Venezuelan people “sorely tried by the sufferings caused by the scourge of the pandemic” and by “the arrogance of the powerful,” Vatican News reported Thursday.
The pope wrote a personal letter this week to Venezuelan Cardinal Baltazar Porras Cardozo, in which he expressed his closeness to the Venezuelan people and his condolences for their trials.
In his letter to Cardinal Porras Cardozo, who is archbishop of Merida and apostolic administrator of Caracas, the pontiff invoked God’s blessings on the troubled nation.
“May God continue to give you strength and fearless speech so that with the heart of a father you may know how to accompany and comfort your faithful holy people, sorely tried by the sufferings caused by the scourge of the pandemic, by the arrogance of the powerful, and by the growing poverty that is strangling them,” the pope wrote.