From Herald Wire Services

 CARACAS -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stepped up his attacks on the
 Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy Sunday, saying the Vatican's former
 representative in Venezuela is allied with the country's political elite.

 Chavez criticized Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara after a newspaper quoted the
 cardinal as saying Chavez's aggressive campaign to win approval for a new
 constitution is immoral. Venezuelans vote Wednesday on whether to approve the
 constitution, the centerpiece of Chavez's attempts to clean up political corruption.

 Speaking on his weekly radio program, Chavez said Castillo Lara was an intimate
 friend of former Venezuelan presidents Rafael Caldera and Carlos Andres Perez,
 whom Chavez called symbols of a bankrupt political system.

 He accused the cardinal of failing to speak out against a host of injustices,
 including the 1989 killing of hundreds of people by soldiers putting down mass
 riots and a 1994 banking scandal that nearly crushed the country's financial
 sector.

 ``Those bankers took the money from here and bankrupted thousands and
 thousands of Venezuelan families. Wouldn't that be immoral, Cardinal Castillo?''
 Chavez said.

 Chavez, a former coup leader, has called church leaders who oppose the
 constitution ``degenerate priests'' and has attacked the country's ``rancid
 oligarchy'' for resisting his reform plans.

 ``An exorcism has to be performed on some bishops and priests. Castillo Lara,
 Roberto Luckert, Jose Sanchez Porras and Baltazar Porras need to be
 exorcised,'' said Chavez during his Sunday broadcast, referring to the leaders of
 the Venezuelan Bishops Conference, which has criticized the proposed
 constitution although they have called on their parishioners to vote
 conscientiously.

 Chavez's harsh rhetoric has provoked criticism that he is polarizing the nation and
 trying to intimidate his detractors. Monsignor Baltazar Porras, the country's top
 Roman Catholic Church leader, said Saturday that Chavez is fomenting ``fear and
 hate'' in Venezuela.

 A few hours after Chavez's statements, bishops conference media director Pedro
 Freitas Romero responded on the Globovision television network.

 ``If discussion and opposing positions are not accepted, then we can say we've
 begun living in a worrisome situation, with a pseudo-totalitarian ruler,'' Freitas
 Romero said.

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