Who is Maria Corina Machado, the Catholic leader awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. With the rosary she leads a prayer movement for the spiritual liberation of Venezuela.

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Promote the democratic transition with the rosary.

This is the nutshell summary of the personality of María Corina Machado, winner yesterday of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Who is María Corina Machado

Anti-communist, she is the Venezuelan leader of the opposition to the regime of Nicolas Maduro.

Her political path indeed combines a long militancy against socialist governments, starting with that of Hugo Chávez, with a personal tension that has cost her isolation, censorship and constant restrictions on her public actions.

After being excluded from the 2024 presidential elections due to judicial measures, Machado acted in hiding, symbolically embodying civil resistance at the heart of the Venezuelan system. Unlike millions of other dissidents, she did not leave Venezuela and tenaciously leads the democratic resistance.

Yesterday the Nobel Committee honored her as «a woman who keeps the flame of democracy alive amid growing darkness», making her «one of the most extraordinary examples of civic courage in Latin America».

 

Machado, a Nobel with the rosary

58 years old, self-declared Catholic, she graduated from the Jesuit university of Caracas and likes to wear multiple rosaries around her neck, some with the national colors of Venezuela.

In 2024 she put herself at the head of the movement “Spiritual Defense of Venezuela” which aspires to the integral liberation of the nation, both physical and spiritual.

She thus promoted a national prayer movement alongside the peaceful protest because, she said, «Venezuelans need security and strength more than ever, because we are walking hand in hand with God on this path and because our destiny will be a good, healthy and joyful Venezuela, united with our children».

Machado dedicated the Nobel Prize to the Venezuelan people, calling them co-participants and drivers of change, and explicitly mentioned the support of the United States and Donald Trump as a fundamental ally in the battle for freedom.

 

 

The (little) doctrinal coherence

One cannot, however, fail to recall some positions of María Corina Machado that are not very consistent with the social doctrine of the Church.

In 2023, in fact, she declared herself in favor of marriage between people of the same sex and regarding adoption for these couples she said she was «in favor of the well-being of children».

Regarding termination of pregnancy, in Venezuela it is allowed only when the mother’s life is at risk. Machado answered that she has “religious convictions” but supports decriminalization in cases of rape, adding that «I would never impose my opinions, in this case those of a religious nature, on society».

We unfortunately know very well that a deep personal faith does not always translate into doctrinal coherence.

 

Nevertheless, remains the image of a woman who chose to stay, to pray and to resist in the heart of an oppressed nation.

In such a context, the rosaries around her neck and her Marian devotion represent for millions of people a declaration of faith in the future of Venezuela.