‘Thanking God for everything’ - For Catholic politician, gratitude strengthened faith in Venezuelan prison
"I got used to thanking God for everything. Absolutely everything."
Juan Pablo Guanipa is one of the best-known faces of the Venezuelan opposition.
He is widely considered to be Nobel Peace Prize Award winner María Corina Machado’s right-hand man.
He has served as a local councilmember, congressman, and vice president of the National Assembly. In 2017, he won the gubernatorial election in Zulia state -– the largest in the country -– but was prevented from taking power by the Venezuelan regime.
Guanipa is well known in Venezuela for three things: His directness -– radically, to some — in confronting the Maduro regime, his sense of humor, and his Catholic faith.
Following the July 2024 election that saw former dictator Nicolás Maduro declared the winner under widespread suspicions of fraud, Guanipa went into hiding for nine months.
He was found and arrested on May 23, 2025 and accused of conspiracy and terrorism. He was then imprisoned until Feb. 9, 2026, when he was freed amid a massive release of political prisoners after the Jan. 3 American capture of former dictator Nicolás Maduro.
But he was rearrested just hours after his release, after he gave several media interviews and visited the families of other political prisoners still in custody.
A day later, after significant local and international pressure, Guanipa reappeared in his house in Maracaibo, under home arrest, with a tracking device attached to his leg. He was finally released from house arrest on Feb. 19.
The Pillar spoke with Guanipa about his Catholic faith, his time in prison, and the Church’s role in the Venezuelan crisis. The interview was conducted in Spanish and has been edited for length and clarity.
What was your time in prison like? How did you make it through this time spiritually?
Prison is an extremely rough ordeal. When you get there, you ask yourself, why is this happening to me? And when you face such a difficult moment in life, people have two options. One is to lose faith. I know of cases of people who have lost faith when faced with very hard times.
But the other is the opposite: to take root in faith, to deepen faith. And I have to thank God very much because what he did for me was to help me in this circumstance to strengthen my faith. I have been a practicing Catholic all my life, aware of my virtues and also of my faults, aware that life is a struggle because we are sinners after all. But going through prison made me deepen my Catholic faith.
I prayed every day and entrusted myself to the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and St. Joseph. Then I had a whole host of saints to whom I prayed: St. Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei because my father was close to Opus Dei, although he was not a member; Isidoro Zorzano, after whom I am named Juan Pablo Isidoro. Isidoro is not yet a saint, but his cause for beatification is open.
I also entrusted myself to St. José Gregorio Hernández and St. Carmen Rendiles, both Venezuelan saints; St. Vincent de Paul, because I studied at a school run by his congregation; St. John Paul II; and Sister Francisca, a nun from Maracaibo, where I was born and still live, who died a few years ago and is in the process of beatification.
So, in the mornings, I would entrust myself to God and all these saints, and I would say a prayer when I woke up—the same one I was taught in school. After that, they would take me out into the sun and take a photo of me with the day’s newspaper as proof of life. Then I would have breakfast and do my exercise routine, which I also entrusted to God and offered up to Him.
After that, I used to pray the Rosary. I must say that before prison I was not in the habit of praying the Rosary every day, but I took it up there. When they arrested me in May, they asked me to get dressed, and in the pants I put on, I had a scapular in my pocket. When they put me in my cell, I turned that scapular into a decade rosary, tying 10 knots to pray.
After the Rosary, I would have a time of mental prayer for about 20 or 30 minutes and have my reading time, which was not necessarily spiritual, but I always offered it up as well.
I don’t know why, but it occurred to me during my time in prison that the Glory Be was a very forgotten prayer. But it is very important because it praises the three divine persons. So I decided that before going to sleep, I would pray the Glory Be 100 times, and I did so every night.
But above all, I got used to thanking God for everything. Absolutely everything. And that’s when I coined a phrase that was, “Thank you, my God, for everything you have given me, for everything you have helped me with, for everything you have forgiven me for, and for everything you have loved me for,” and I always said it.
I also prayed a lot for the deceased members of my family, then for my mother, my brothers, my children, I prayed for Venezuela, for the future. That was my life in prison.
When you say you gave thanks for everything, did you also thank God for being in prison?
Absolutely. I believe that you can learn from everything. I can’t say that I wanted to go to prison. Never in my life. I hid for 10 months. I was in 12 different places. I did everything I could to avoid being arrested, but in the end they caught me. But from the very beginning I entrusted myself to God.
When they put the chains on me, they were chains on my hands that went down to my waist and then closed around my feet as well. What I did at that moment was to start praying and shouting “Long live free Venezuela.” But I entrusted myself to God from the moment they put me in the cell. I was alone in that cell for nine months.
It wasn’t like in El Helicoide (Editor’s note: El Helicoide is a torture center and political prison run by the Venezuelan regime in Caracas), where there are cells with 15 to 18 people. I was alone. That has its positive and negative sides. Sharing with your fellow inmates leads to forming long-lasting, deep friendships, but [being alone] allowed me to be with God without interruption.
And overall, I had more freedom. I decided and organized my day and had my routine. And God was always at the center of that routine. I thanked Him for everything, I thanked Him for everything I knew I was going to learn in prison, because I knew that prison was not going to defeat me. Prison was not going to destroy me or depress me.
I clung to God and to the hope of being released, the hope of seeing my children, the hope of seeing a free Venezuela.
Did they let you see a priest while you were in prison?
I asked for a priest countless times. They told me it was impossible, without further explanation.
The first three weeks in prison were the worst. On the 21st day, they asked me how things were going, and I bluntly described my situation: I had no bathroom, just a hole in the floor, no sink, no mirror, no shower, nothing. I had a one-inch-thick mattress. I was in extremely precarious conditions. When I told them all this, they took me to a room one day and put me in front of the television.
What I did was watch “The Chosen,” which is not a series made by Catholics but is very well done. That day I watched 12 episodes in a row while they fixed the cell. At some point, an officer asked me if I wanted to watch something else and I just replied, “No, brother, this is great” (laughs). I still have to catch up, but I watched several episodes there.
But there was no way they would let me see a priest, much less confess. So I confessed directly to God with the commitment to confess to a priest when I got out of there. The same day they gave me house arrest, I called a priest friend, and he came the next day. However, I couldn’t confess because we suspected there were microphones in my house.
During my house arrest, there was a police officer present at all times, an ankle monitor on my foot, cameras at the back of the house, a visitor’s book, etc. So the priest told me that he would give me a general absolution and that I should call him when I was out of that situation to go to confession.
Then he gave me absolution and communion for the first time in all that time. Twelve days later, I was given full freedom, and almost immediately I ran to this priest’s house for confession. We talked for about an hour, and I made my confession as God commands. It just feels so sweet to be in God’s grace.
What role should the Church play today and in the future of Venezuela?
The Church must accompany the people. The Church has often sided with the freedom of the people, especially in Venezuela. I deeply admire St. John Paul II because he was clear that communism was an extremely serious evil for the people, because he himself suffered it in Poland.
And I would say that he was one of the architects of the liberation of Poland, of the fall of the Berlin Wall, of the fall of the Soviet empire. So, I think that demonstrates the role that the Church can play in the liberation of peoples.
We have had priests in Venezuela who have fought very hard against the dictatorial regime. Chávez told priests who criticized him that they had the devil inside their cassocks. This regime has clashed greatly with the Church, and the Venezuelan people are deeply Catholic.
So, I believe that the role of the Church is to promote the liberation of Venezuela and then work with everyone to achieve the stabilization of democracy in the country.
If you had the chance to speak to the Holy Father, what would you tell him about Venezuela?
I would ask him to listen carefully to the Venezuelan people. I have read some of his statements about Venezuela and I have seen that he is concerned about the country. I have seen him trying to figure out how to get involved. But the solution is not just to say that there should be no violence.
I believe we must go a little further and understand what we Venezuelans have experienced over the past 27 years. Maduro was not a legitimate president in Venezuela. Maduro was a dictator who had never won an election; he always seized power through fraud and abuse.
So, I believe we must empathize with the suffering of the Venezuelan people and work hard for their liberation, avoiding violence. In this, I agree with the Holy Father. I have always said that, in my opinion, what happened on Jan. 3 should not have happened in Venezuela, but Maduro is to blame; he was the one who allowed it to happen in the country.
However, that specific event opened the door to a process of stabilization and transition in Venezuela. Hopefully, the pope will accompany us in this and may even come to the country very soon.
It is no secret that various opposition politicians, including María Corina Machado, have political positions that are contrary to the teachings of the Church – for example, on abortion. As a Catholic, how do you justify working with or supporting people with these positions?
I can speak for myself and my conscience. I am a full-time Catholic. Catholicism is not a map that you can cut up and keep what you like. It is not a buffet where you serve yourself the dishes you like and leave out the ones you don’t. You are either Catholic or you are not, period. It’s as simple as that.
Life is an absolute right, without exceptions. We can’t give the baby the death penalty, no matter how complicated the situation may be.
I have always been a staunch defender of life; I am against abortion in every sense. It makes no sense to kill a child in its mother’s womb, none whatsoever. The same applies to euthanasia.
Now, there are political leaders who think differently, and we are probably allies. But in this situation in the country, I cannot isolate myself from everyone who does not think like me. We are in a very particular situation. But when the time comes, we will put up the fight if we have to.
I don’t know what María Corina [Machado] thinks about these issues, but I have my convictions and I will defend them on all fronts. If I am a member of the National Assembly, which I have been, and they come up with a bill that includes ending the right to life in any way, I would never vote in favor of it, even if my party tells me that I should vote for it.
I don’t think my party would ever tell me to do that because I am in a party that is Christian-oriented, a centrist-humanist party whose ideology is based on the social doctrine of the Church.
The future of Venezuela is marked by uncertainty. How do you live with that uncertainty from a faith perspective?
Always clinging to God. Always asking God to help us get out of this situation once and for all, aware that we have made progress and grateful for the fact that we have made progress. It has been 27 years of dictatorship. In my personal case, I have dedicated the most productive years of my life to fighting against the dictatorship, and I always ask God to give me the strength to keep going, and I ask Him to accompany us Venezuelans in the effort we are making.
I greatly value the Venezuelan people. With the totalitarian attempts we have had with Chávez and Maduro, who have been trying to control even the minds of Venezuelans for 27 years, we have responded so forcefully, wanting to maintain our democratic values. That speaks very well of this nation. Sometimes we criticize ourselves a lot, but we don’t recognize the positive things we have as a nation.
So I pray to God constantly that we may finish consolidating this process. And I am very confident. I have great peace of mind. There are difficult months ahead, elections will come eventually, but we must be very patient and trust in the Lord and Our Lady.