Venezuela, a deeply Marian country

Because the Spanish conquest of Venezuela was not devoid of controversy, the natives sometimes confused resistance to the domination of the conquistadors with a rejection of the Gospel by the missionaries. This is why the Shrine of Coromoto (Guanare) stands out: here, the Virgin Mary herself invited the natives to receive the gift of faith. Coromoto became the country's national shrine.

Numerous cities placed themselves under the patronage of the Virgin Mary. In 1570, for example, the city of Trujillo elected Our Lady of Peace as its patron saint. And in 1766, the capital, Caracas, was named “City of Mary”, with the engraved inscription: “Hail Mary most holy, conceived without sin at the first moment of her natural existence”.

Above all, Mary's name was inscribed in people's hearts: it was her protective solicitude that was experienced in 1638 when an insect threatened to destroy the rich cocoa plantations; then in 1766 when the victims of an earthquake emerged unscathed from the rubble of Caracas and in 1813-1815 during the War of Independence against the Spanish. The Libertadores Simón Bolívar and Antonio José de Sucre placed their troops under the protection of the Virgin Mary and came to the shrine to thank her afterwards.

From a Marian point of view, the recent period is marked by the votive consecration of the nation to Mary on January 27, 1985 in Caracas, and by the apparitions already officially recognized, which took place in Betania (Miranda state) from 1976 to 2001. The apparition first involved Maria Esperanza, a stigmatist woman, before being seen by numerous witnesses. The Virgin Mary appeared under the title of “Our Lady Reconciler of Peoples”.

Marian Encyclopedia