From Venezuela to the Vatican

Many Venezuelan Catholics felt immense joy when we learned that Pope Francis had appointed our nuncio, Pietro Parolin, as Vatican Secretary of State. Today I want to share a few things about this bishop, who will surely take fond memories of Venezuela with him to the Vatican.

When Don Pietro arrived in Venezuela, several of us Catholics were invited to the nunciature to meet him. The evening began with a beautiful Mass that he celebrated. In his homily he asked for prayers and help to fulfill the new mission Benedict XVI had entrusted to him. It was his first great show of humility. Another very charming thing was when he told us that his relatives and friends in Italy, when they learned he was coming to Venezuela, were very worried. The news about the country heard in Italy was not very good, and they warned him of the danger of coming here. He said he arrived a little tense but was greatly struck, from the moment he set foot in the airport, by the joy of Venezuelans. The evening ended with Venezuelan music, and he sang along to the cuatro, adapting the words of the song to his new post in Venezuela.

I suppose that in the few (but intense) years Don Pietro lived here, working hard and visiting every diocese in the country alongside our bishops, priests, religious, missionaries and lay people, he realized that much of the joy we Venezuelans show comes from our immense faith in God and our great devotion to the Blessed Virgin under her various titles. He saw how every region of Venezuela has its own Marian devotion.

I will never forget the look of great joy on his face when he attended his first procession of the Divina Pastora. In his homily he said with great emotion: “It is one thing to be told what happens here every year, and another to be here and feel it.” Our nuncio never missed that procession (in that heat he was not used to), or the many other huge manifestations of faith that take place in our country, where all of us Venezuelans (of every political or social leaning) are united by faith.

I know Archbishop Parolin will take fond memories of our Homeland with him to the Vatican. He will remember how our Holy Catholic Church works in our country, without pause or rest, and always alongside those most in need. Last July, in his opening address to the 100th Ordinary Assembly of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference, he said: “Like a nomad, for four years I have shared the burden of the work and the heat, but also the joy and consolation of serving God and his Church in this land of grace.” Pietro Parolin also carried out a great mission of bringing government and Church closer together. It was quiet work, but it bore fruit.

I am sure he also saw how our Cardinal and our bishops are united in a great straight line of love and respect toward the Holy Father and the doctrine of the faith. I personally had the pleasure of telling him once that I was very proud of my Venezuelan Church, which for me was one of the most exemplary in the world. At that passionate statement, he smiled.

In a few days Don Pietro will leave Venezuela and, as he said in his statements, he will leave our land with regret. In the lines he wrote on his appointment he said: “I feel keenly the grace of this call, which once again is one of God’s surprises in my life, and I feel all the responsibility of this hard and demanding mission, before which my strength is weak and my abilities poor; that is why I trust in the merciful love of the Lord. I take up this new service to the Gospel, to the Church and to Pope Francis with anxiety, but also with faith and serenity, ready, as he has asked us from the beginning, to walk, to build up, to construct and to confess. May the Virgin, whom I like to invoke under the titles of Monte Berico, Guadalupe and Coromoto, give us the courage to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord; to build the Church on the blood the Lord shed on the Cross; and to confess the one glory, Christ crucified. And so the Church will go forward. And, as they say in Venezuela: ‘God bless you!’”

With that last phrase we can see that he will take Venezuela with him to the Vatican. From here we will pray a great deal for Don Pietro, and we ask him and our dear Pope Francis not to stop praying for Venezuela and for our Church. We thank him a thousand times for everything he did in our country, and we ask our Patroness, the Virgin of Coromoto, to cover him with her mantle so that at every moment he may carry out, with grace and the light of the Holy Spirit, this mission God and Pope Francis have entrusted to him for the good of our Holy Catholic Church.