Venezuelan bishops silent after Maduro capture

“We’ve just been praying since 2 a.m.”

The Venezuelan bishops are waiting to make a public statement after a Jan. 3 American military operation led to the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

The president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, Archbishop Jesús González de Zárate, told The Pillar that “the situation is still developing,” and that the conference does not feel the time is right to release a statement.

“The situation is still in development, we need to have a general view of the situation. We’ll do it when it’s right,” the archbishop said.

“We’ve just been praying since 2 a.m.,” he added.

Venezuelan demonstrators in Valencia, Spain celebrate the capture of Nicolás Maduro by the United States on Jan. 3, 2026. Credit : Eduardo Ripoll / Alamy.

Around 2 a.m. on Jan. 3, several social media users in Venezuela reported hearing explosions throughout Caracas and seeing helicopters and airplanes flying over the nation’s capital.

Hours later, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that the U.S. military had conducted an operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Marudo has been indicted on charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the U.S.

Bondi said on social media that Maduro will “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

Flores is also facing drug and weapons charges in U.S. federal court.

During the operation, the U.S. military bombed various military targets throughout the city and in nearby towns, including the headquarters of the ministry of defense, the largest military airport in the country, and a port.

Trump said there were no American casualties during the attack, while The New York Times reported a single civilian casualty due to the bombings.

Maduro has been president of Venezuela since 2013. His presidency has been marked by political and economic crises, with widespread international criticism for its corruption and human rights abuses.

In 2024, the government-controlled National Electoral Council announced that Maduro was elected to a third term as president. However, the election was widely recognized by the international community as being marred by severe irregularities, with opposition groups and media outlets offering evidence that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won in a landslide.

The disputed election results prompted widespread protests in the country, which led to a brutal government repression.

The Catholic Church is widely respected in Venezuela, and the Venezuelan bishops have been among the most stringent critics of the Maduro regime within the country.

In their 2025 Christmas message, they criticized the “deprivation of liberty for holding different political views from national and foreign citizens, the widespread impoverishment of the population suffering from rampant inflation and a dysfunctional economy.”

However, they were also critical of Trump’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, saying that Christmas had been overshadowed by “repeated and, at times, contradictory reports of military action near our coasts with regrettable loss of life, the presence of foreign military power in international waters in the Caribbean Sea.”

The silence of the Venezuelan bishops after the American operation reflects the uncertainty about what comes next for the country of nearly 30 million people.

While Maduro awaits criminal charges in New York, the future of Venezuela remains unclear, with contradictory reports emerging in the early hours after the dictator’s capture.

In a Jan. 3 press conference, Trump said that the U.S. is “going to run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”

Trump was evasive on what specifically that would look like, but said later in the press conference that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez had been sworn-in as a president.

“She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump said, adding that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken with her, and Rodríguez had given assurances to the United States.

Later in the day, however, during a press conference in Caracas, Rodríguez denounced the U.S. operation as an “illegal kidnapping.” She insisted that Maduro was still president of the country and demanded his release.

The capture of Maduro has been warmly welcomed by the Venezuelan diaspora throughout the world and by many in the country.

However, the operation has been met with mixed reactions from both international leaders and lawmakers in the United States.

Supporters of Trump praised the capture as a bold move to bring a dangerous dictator to justice, while critics questioned the legality of the move under both the U.S. Constitution and international law, and speculated that the actions by the U.S. government could embolden Russia and China to make aggressive moves of their own.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) called the move a “justified operation that will protect American lives,” while Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said the president’s “decisive action to disrupt the unacceptable status quo and apprehend Maduro, through the execution of a valid Department of Justice warrant, is an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called Maduro an “illegitimate dictator” but stressed that “launching military action without congressional authorization and without a credible plan for what comes next is reckless,” while U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, (R-Ga.) called the attack “a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies.”

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, reiterated that Maduro “lacks legitimacy,” while also stressing that “the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected.”

Pope Leo XIV has not yet spoken about the Jan. 3 attacks.

During a Dec. 2 press conference returning from his trip to Turkey and Lebanon, the pope was asked about his opinion on an American military threat on Venezuela.

He said in response that “it is better to seek dialogue, maybe pressure, including economic pressure, but looking for another way to bring about change.”