Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado used a meeting with Pope Leo XIV on Monday to emphasize the legitimacy of the opposition’s 2024 election victory and raise concern about political prisoners, Reuters reported.
In a brief video clip released by the Vatican, the two were seen shaking hands and smiling as they sat across from each other at the pope's desk in his official office in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, said in a statement that she asked Leo "to intercede for all Venezuelans who remain kidnapped and disappeared."
Leo, the first U.S. pope, has called for Venezuela to remain an independent country after the capture by U.S. forces of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on the orders of President Donald Trump.
In a major foreign policy speech on Friday, 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.
Venezuela's government said on Monday that 116 prisoners had been released, although rights groups reported a lower figure.
The release of hundreds of political prisoners in the South American country is a long-running demand of human rights groups, international bodies and opposition figures.
Machado, a former National Assembly member, has been one of the leading voices calling for prisoner releases. She was barred from running in Venezuela’s 2024 general election by authorities aligned with Maduro.
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