Pope Leo meets Venezuelan opposition leader Machado at Vatican

VATICAN CITY – Pope Leo met Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel peace prize winner Maria Corina Machado on Jan 12, the Vatican said, but did not provide any further details.

The meeting, listed among the Pope’s appointments for Jan 12, in a daily Vatican statement, had not been included in an earlier advisory to the press about Pope Leo’s planned schedule for the day.

Pope Leo, the first US pope, has called for Venezuela to remain an independent country after the capture by US forces of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on the orders of President Donald Trump.

In a major foreign policy speech on Jan 9, the Pope decried the use of military force as a means of achieving diplomatic goals and called for human rights to be protected in Venezuela.

Ms Machado, a former National Assembly member, was barred from running in Venezuela’s 2024 general election by the authorities aligned with Maduro.

She backed a stand‑in candidate who was widely considered to have won the vote, although Maduro claimed victory. Ballot audits by independent observers showed irregularities in the official results. REUTERS