Venezuelan opposition leader returns from exile and attends Mass at popular shrine

María Corina Machado, recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, returned to Venezuela on Oct. 25 after nearly a year in exile. In her first public appearance on Venezuelan soil, the political leader arrived at the Archdiocesan Shrine of the Divine Shepherdess in the city of Barquisimeto.

Why Machado returned

After the July 28, 2024, presidential election, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, controlled by the ruling socialist regime, declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro to be the winner. However, opposition candidate Edmundo González claimed victory, and his organization said it had to vote tallies to prove it.

In a sense, Machado, very popular among voters, was the power behind González because although she had been banned from running for office by the Maduro regime, she campaigned openly in support of González.

To quell protests after the election, the repressive apparatus of the Maduro regime unleashed an unprecedented campaign of persecution against opposition politicians, activists, and protesters, and Machado went into hiding.

She left the country in December 2025 in a complex extraction operation coordinated from the United States that took her to Oslo, Norway.

On Jan. 3, 2026, U.S special forces captured Maduro and his wife Cilia and extradited them to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges. Venezuela’s Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, was named acting president but the future of the socialist regime and democracy remained very unclear.

Machado arrives in Venezuela

“I am here. With you,” Machado, who is the coordinator of the Vente Venezuela party, wrote on X around midday on Sunday, Oct. 25. Shortly thereafter, she arrived at the Shrine of the Divine Shepherdess located in Barquisimeto.

The Divine Shepherdess, taken metaphorically, is a Marian devotion that every Jan. 14 draws millions of people to the streets for one of the largest religious processions in the region and the world.

Machado attended Sunday Mass while crowds gathered inside and outside the shrine calling out, “Freedom!” Following the Eucharist, Machado boarded a vehicle to join a caravan heading toward the capital, Caracas, where she arrived the afternoon of Oct. 25.

Reactions from the United States

In Washington, D.C., President Trump stated that he was unaware of the Venezuelan leader’s return. “I don’t know anything about it,” he replied when asked by the press. “But I think she’s a very nice woman. She gave me her Nobel Prize, so how can I say anything else? And I hope she’s safe,” he remarked.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Machado’s return is a direct result of “reconciliation talks” between the socialist government and a segment of the Venezuelan opposition, talks supported by the U.S. administration. These dialogue sessions, Rubio noted on X, have already led to the release of hundreds of political prisoners and the safe return of many exiles.

“The United States expects the freedoms of all sectors of Venezuelan politics to continue to be respected,” Rubio wrote. “Likewise, we expect all political actors to support these talks which represent the best chance Venezuela has had in thirty years to peacefully achieve not just a free and fair election but an enduring democracy,” he added.

This week, interim president Delcy Rodríguez, a devoted and avowed follower of Sai Baba, an Indian spiritual guru now deceased, revealed that she had sent a letter to Pope Leo XIV, prior to his lung surgery, in which she wished him good health and also requested the swift canonization of Blessed María de San José, as well as the beatification of Bishop Salvador Montes de Oca.

This story was first published by EWTN News Español, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.