Caracas, Venezuela, Feb 11, 2020 / 15:48 pm
As the people of Venezuela continue to suffer severe food and medication shortages due to hyperinflation, the Church is also affected, said Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino last week.
"We're suffering the same hardships, the same shortages the Venezuelan people are suffering," Urosa, who is the Archbishop Emeritus of Caracas, Venezuela, said in a Feb. 6 interview with the Spanish edition of the Italian publication Bussola Quotidiana.
Under the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval, with severe shortages of food and medicine, high unemployment, power outages, and hyperinflation. Some 4.5 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015.
Urosa explained that the gasoline shortage has made it difficult for priests and bishops – especially those from the interior of the country – to travel and do their pastoral work.