{"id":3015,"date":"2019-02-07T15:50:59","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T15:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=3015"},"modified":"2019-02-07T15:50:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T15:50:59","slug":"pope-francis-says-hes-willing-to-mediate-in-venezuela-if-both-sides-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2019\/02\/07\/pope-francis-says-hes-willing-to-mediate-in-venezuela-if-both-sides-want\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Says He\u2019s Willing to Mediate in Venezuela if Both Sides Want"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE \u2014 Pope Francis expressed a potential willingness on Tuesday to mediate a peaceful resolution to the tense political conflict in Venezuela if asked by both President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the opposition leader who is increasingly recognized as the country\u2019s legitimate leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are always willing,\u201d said Francis on the papal plane returning to Rome from Abu Dhabi, after becoming the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He acknowledged that Mr. Maduro, whose government the United States and many other European countries no longer recognize<\/a>, had sent him a letter, which he said he has yet to read, asking for a new dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, more countries in the European Union recognized the opposition leader, Juan Guaid\u00f3, as the legitimate interim president of Venezuela after Mr. Maduro refused to call new elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThere needs to be the will of both parts,\u201d Francis said, calling mediation a final step to be taken after the completion of little steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pope recalled John Paul II\u2019s intervention in a dispute between Argentina and Chile, which he called a \u201ccourageous\u201d act that \u201cavoided a war,\u201d but suggested that the conditions for mediation had not yet been met and that a previous attempt by Vatican diplomats and European statesmen came up empty, producing only \u201ca little mouse, nothing, smoke.\u201dA protest against the government of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, last week.CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A protest against the government of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, last week.CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019ll see the letter and we will see what can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his in-flight news conference, which lasted about 45 minutes, Francis for the first time acknowledged that his church had a problem with priests sexually abusing adult nuns and women religious, reports of which had even reached the Vatican\u2019s official newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d Francis said, that inside the church \u201cthere are priests and bishops who have done that,\u201d adding that it was a continuing problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the Vatican was working on the issue and had suspended some priests, but he failed to say whether any concrete responses were in the offing. \u201cShould more be done? Yes,\u201d Francis said. \u201cDo we have the will? Yes. But it is a path that we have already begun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He also talked about his historic trip to the United Arab Emirates, b ut he generally avoided specifics about his conversations with officials in the United Arab Emirates about their involvement in the war in Yemen or his efforts to tackle abuse in his church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about Yemen, where his hosts are allied with Saudi Arabia in a brutal war that has brought devastation on civilians and has starved tens of thousands of children to death, the pope said that he had the chance in his roughly 40-hour visit to broach the issue with only a few people. But, he said, he found \u201cgood will\u201d on the part of the Emirates to \u201cstart a peace process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said he was not bemused by his hosts\u2019 welcoming ceremony, which included jet fighters screaming overhead. \u201cI interpret all the gestures of welcome as gestures of good will,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone does it according to their culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subscribe for original insights, commentary and discussions on the major news stories of the week, from columnists Max Fisher and Amanda Taub.SIGN UPMost of the pope\u2019s visit was focused on interreligious dialogue with the Muslim world and it culminated with his signing a document with Ahmed Al-Tayeb, grand imam of Egypt\u2019s Al-Azhar mosque.CreditAndrew Medichini\/Associated Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Most of the pope\u2019s visit was focused on interreligious dialogue with the Muslim world and it culminated with his signing a document with Ahmed Al-Tayeb, grand imam of Egypt\u2019s Al-Azhar mosque.CreditAndrew Medichini\/Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The majority of the pope\u2019s visit was focused on interreligious dialogue with the Muslim world, and it culminated with his signing a sort of manifesto for brotherhood between the faiths between himself and Ahmed Al-Tayeb, grand imam of Egypt\u2019s influential Al-Azhar mosque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about the conservative criticism that he had been Pollyannaish in his approach to the Middle East and been taken advantage of by the Muslim sheikhs, Francis joked, \u201cNot only the Muslims,\u201d noting that his critics felt he had been manipulated by just about everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he said the document he signed<\/a> was on strong theological footing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to say this clearly, from a Catholic point of view, the document has not moved a millimeter\u201d from church teaching codified in the Second Vatican Council. He said he took the extra step of having the document vetted by a tough Dominican theologian in the papal household, who approved it. \u201cIt\u2019s not a step backward,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also made it clear that he had continued to voice his concerns about the persecution of Christians in the region \u2014 which he said his flock knew all too well \u2014 but that either \u201cme or another Peter,\u201d meaning a successor pope, would surely visit more Muslim countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Earlier Tuesday, the pope celebrated Mass at the Zayed Sports City Stadium in Abu Dhabi before roughly 135,000 Catholics, many of them migrants<\/a> from India, the Philippines and South America, who had come to the Emirates to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mass, also attended by 4,000 Muslims, was the largest public celebration of a Christian rite in the history of the Muslim country, where the worship of other faiths is tolerated but is not typically done so publicly.Aircraft flying over the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi during a reception for Pope Francis on Monday.CreditGiuseppe Cacace\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aircraft flying over the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi during a reception for Pope Francis on Monday.CreditGiuseppe Cacace\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The next major event on the pope\u2019s schedule is a meeting with presidents of the world\u2019s bishops\u2019 conferences at the end of February in Rome to focus on a response to the global sex abuse crisis that is threatening the pope\u2019s legacy and the moral capital that is the currency of his pontificate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pope is less than eager to receive questions about the issue. But he mentioned, in his positive appraisal of the United Arab Emirates, that it had held a conference last year on the protection of children from online predators. \u201cPedo-pornography today is a big-money industry,\u201d the pope said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he answered a question about priests sexually abusing nuns, Francis recalled that his predecessor, Benedict XVI, was \u201ca strong man\u201d who he said had sought to remove examples of sexual abuse and even slavery by priests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pope John Paul II was apparently less than heroic on the issue. Francis told a story about how Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, when he was the church\u2019s chief doctrinal watchdog, sought to disband a religious order, apparently The Legionaries of Christ, which was riddled with sexual and economic corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis recounted that Benedict was called to a meeting on the issue and brought all his files. \u201cWhen he came back he told his secretary, \u2018Put them in the archive. The other side won,\u2019 \u201d Francis said, adding, \u201cWe should not be scandalized by this \u2014 it\u2019s part of a process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He said that when Benedict became pope he immediately told his secretary to get him the files \u201cand let\u2019s start again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis said that he, too, wanted to move forward on the issue of the clerical abuse of nuns. \u201cWe\u2019re working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE \u2014 Pope Francis expressed a potential willingness on Tuesday to mediate a peaceful resolution to the tense political conflict in Venezuela if asked by both President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the opposition leader who is increasingly recognized as the country\u2019s legitimate leader. \u201cWe are always willing,\u201d said Francis on the papal plane returning to Rome from Abu… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3016,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015\/revisions\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}