Posted on 03/08/2013 9:01:51 PM PST by daniel1212
Caracas, Venezuela, Mar 6, 2013 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- A source in Venezuela has revealed to CNA that President Hugo Chavez died “in bosom of the Church” and received spiritual direction and the sacraments in his last days.
In announcing Chavez’s death to the nation on March 5, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said the Venezuelan leader died “clinging to Christ.” The source in Venezuela told CNA that during the last weeks of his life, Chavez requested spiritual direction and asked to receive the sacraments.
Ever since he assumed power in 1999, Chavez butted heads continuously with the Catholic Church over statements by the bishops warning of the risks and excesses of his Socialist agenda. In 2002, Chavez accused the Venezuelan bishops of being a “tumor” for his revolutionary goals and demanded that the Vatican not intervene in the internal affairs of the country.
In recent years, Chavez occasionally took part in the religious services of distinct denominations, but he surprised the press in April 2012 when he showed up at a Catholic church in his hometown of Barinas to attend Holy Week services. He wore a rosary around his neck and prayed for strength to fight his illness. Last July, Chavez made public his request to meet with the Catholic bishops.
After Chavez’s death, the Archdiocese of Caracas, led by Cardinal Jorge Urosa who is currently in Rome for the conclave, sent its condolences
The secretary general of the Bishops’ Conference of Venezuela, Bishop Jesus Gonzalez de Zarate, called for national unity. “At this time let us all put forth our best sentiments,” he said during an interview on Venezuelan television. “Death is not the end of our life,” he added. “Death only opens the way to a life of complete happiness, at the side of God our Father.”
If he genuinely had any religion, it was probably something syncretic along the lines of santeria.
If you were familiar with my typical posting at all, then you would know it is very far from substance-less or uninformed arguments, while the subject of this post is something a traditional RC could post, in objection to it. As seen by their reactions to like funerals:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2327700/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2330377/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2695691/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2327501/posts
As for nothing better to do, it is by and far RCs who can be seen advertising for their church here far more than any other, and when you trumpet an elitist position, then you should not complain when that draws exposure.
What Truth could he have repented to? He didn't know The Truth. BTW, did he die poor? Just wondering how deep 'his faith' was.
And then you have Mother Theresa types, but avoiding two extremes, what manner of Christians Rome overall fosters is an issue.
Nor did the pope censure him at all in his response, but “the Holy Father cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of wisdom, comfort and strength in the Lord.”
Not when it comes to salvation. However, man does and IF they read His Word and still believes what man says.
Ignorant Trolling Disorder - 9/11/12
Obviously some latin american roman catholics are very very delusional..
Hugo was evil incarnate..
Could be a problem in North America as well..
As often said, while Trad. RCs understandably see them as excommunicated, Rome counts and treats them as members in life and in death.
Now it is very late. Have a God night.
Stalin was a Russian Orthodox seminarian before declaring himself an atheist—he later had thousands of priests harassed, imprisoned, or killed. Hitler was baptized Catholic, but fell away in a pretty big way: He had his political party specifically condemned by the Pope and murdered thousands of priests and nuns, and millions of Catholic laymen.
Seriously, God's grace is sufficient in Christ but I doubt Hugo's repentance was.
He died full of regret and is in the non smoking section of hell where the blues flames are.
Pretty doubtful he woke up in the bosom of Abraham. It’s more a commentary of the socialist corruption of the church.
As to Mahmoud Ahmanutjob, he has no role to play whatsoever despite his insolent prediction that the late Venezuelan dictator, among others, will accompany Christ back to earth. Let Ahmanutjob kiss his own coffin.
Indeed, since the leaders are not denying and are even affirming their Faith, let's hope it tempers their actions, limits the damage of their Marxist economic views, and cools their class-hatred.
I have heard that Hitler was a Catholic altar boy in his youth. He certainly did not die as a public adherent to Catholicism. His life suggests that his access to heaven was no better than Stalin's and for largely similar reasons of mass murder. Hitler also added to a mountain of crimes and sins, death by suicide, putting a gun in his mouth and blowing his brains out.
We Catholics believe that if a person with however vile a track record accepts a grace of final repentance, makes an act of perfect contrition (not out of fear of hell but for simply offending God and thus rejecting His love), then his sins may be forgiven by God. Many of Hitler's public sins were of a sort in which one such sin would excommunicate him latae sententiae. He did not have a lot of time between pulling the trigger and death and he would have been distracted by the pain. God certainly knows as does Hitler.
It is widely known based on history,that death or near death changes many people to believers in the universal God and to seeking the means/path to an eternal existence with God which they seemingly abhorred while breathing in this world. How God deals with such people is God’s choosing.
He went for the light and that familar smell of sulfur. Chavez died in the warm embrace of Satan’s colon.
Wow, that is insane.
He isn’t going to heaven
Nothing convinces me that, if he had recovered, he would have changed the direction of his life or the nature of his regime.
Only God knows, of course.
I’m sure facing death has a way of focusing your attention on the transcendental. But I don’t see any evidence that he ever thought he was wrong about anything.
What, don’t you wear tracksuits to funerals ? BTW, is that one of Saddam’s progeny (the new Venezuelan dictator, that is) ?
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