Editor: It always gives me such a thrill to hear the latest bleatings of "The Princes of the Church" regarding the temporal governance of the Bolivarian nation State of Venezuela.

Asking the Church to accept true Democracy in South America is like asking them to accept abortion on demand; their personal self-interest and life experience demands obsequious attention to the elite class from which they sprang and obeisance to that leadership, to which they all aspire, in Rome.

• To heavily paraphrase that now forgotten CIA director (Tennant), "The Pope does not always have the best interests of the Venezuelan People at heart."

Archbishop Santana is no exception to the rule.  How can anyone with a brain argue that airports and seaports should be run only by and for the advantage of that fraction of a nation State in which they are found?  How can any nation have control over its own security, economically or physically, with that sort of a set up?  In both Canada and the US air and seaports are under tight Federal control, and I have not heard the Archbishop of Vancouver raising a huge stink about it.

My Venezuelan Brothers and Sisters, remembering Fr. Santana's role as the Head of Venezuela's Church, why is he giving the blessing of the Church to those who defy the State's Constitutional Right and Duty to regulate?

Commerce and Security?

• No unintelligent man becomes a Prince of the Church, and no intelligent man could advocate a strong State by allowing Provinces within that State to control the Commerce and Security of the whole.

Venezuela, the Church is not your friend ... it has an agenda and that agenda is to divide you up and sell you off to the highest bidder.

I am SURE that Zulia Province has enjoyed its loosened Federal ties as stated by His Excellency.  But, has that been to the advantage of the Venezuelan people as a whole over the years?

Has that wealth trickled down, or trickled sideways or trickled anyway but up?

And the Church thought and still, apparently, thinks that corrugated shanty towns with neither plumbing nor running water are the way to produce those penitents who, if they are lucky, will find jobs for a buck and a half a day slaving for the Anointed Ones of the Church, The Wealthy, The Connected, The Families ... and the rest can be used for their guilt and lack of self worth.  That is where The Church wants you ... that is where Archbishop Santana wants you, divided, jealous, and impoverished, vying for menial jobs in a third world economy, it is the only way that He and His Outfit get any respect.

Finally: "Archbishop Santana warned that a dangerous climate is being created by the government, and that confrontations and threats only lead to more violence."

Hello, hello ... 21st Century calling 15th Century ... hello, hello, are you there?