Before becoming a bishop, Monsignor Roberto Lückert León was a citizen. Like few priests, he exercised his right to freedom of thought and expression. This earned him epic confrontations with Hugo Chávez and then with Nicolás Maduro.
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With a very marked Maracucho accent, he harshly criticized the steps that Chávez was taking towards a totalitarian State.
He did it from the church, from the Episcopal Conference, from the mass.
That is why, as long as the media could, they consulted his opinion about the country, until his words became the perfect excuse to sanction a media outlet, to persecute journalists, to close a space.
He faced attacks, public threats and legal proceedings.
He died this Sunday at the age of 85 in his homeland, Maracaibo.
He was held for several days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Madre Rafols Hospital, a sanatorium built by the Catholic Church in the capital of Zulia, and which survives the hospital crisis that is spreading throughout the country. He had contracted Covid for the second time.
The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference confirmed his death with a note of mourning on social networks. The funeral will take place this Sunday in the Maracaibo Cathedral and the remains will be in the Nuestra Señora de la Asunción church.
During the last years of his life, the Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Coro was at home with his family.
This theologian and philosopher was rector and parish priest of the Basilica of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá from 1972 to 1978.
“A man who always defended the truth with courage and tenacity. His word was always an encouragement so that no one would remain silent in the face of abuse,” wrote María Corina Machado.
A Eucharist will be held in his honor this Monday in the Basilica of Maracaibo.
“He leaves us with his talkativeness, his character –sometimes affable and sometimes scolding–, his bonhomie and social sensitivity, his firm stance against the regime, the clarity of his message,” wrote leader Juan Pablo Guanipa.
A life dedicated to the priesthood
The Archdiocese of Caracas summarized his biography remembering:
He was born in Maracaibo, Zulia state, on December 9, 1939, into a home with mixed religions: his father Walter, a native of Germany, was Lutheran and his mother Carmen Alicia, from Trujillo, was Catholic. He was the eldest of eight siblings.
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His priestly path began on August 14, 1966, when he was ordained by Monsignor Domingo Roa Pérez and appointed cooperating vicar of the Santa Bárbara parish of Maracaibo, later vicar-bursar of the same and member of the team of priests in charge of the Vocational Center of the Archdiocese From maracaibo. He was also parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1970.
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From April 27, 1985, he was bishop of Cabimas and received episcopal ordination on June 29 of that same year. He was later president of the Media Commission of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference (CEV) and the Department for Social Communications (Decos-Celam), based in Bogotá, Colombia.
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On July 21, 1993, he was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Coro and took possession of it on October 2 of that same year, the day of the Holy Angels.
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In 1996 he was appointed president of the Department of Liturgy of the CEV and of the Commission of Music and Sacred Art and Patrimonial Assets of the same.
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He is the first archbishop of Coro, an appointment issued by the then Pope John Paul II – today a saint – on November 23, 1998. A year later he received the archiepiscopal pallium from the then pontiff in Vatican City, Italy.
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On June 25, 2010, within the framework of the celebration of his Episcopal Silver Anniversary, he was named Illustrious Son of Zulia by the government of that state, under decree number 400.
