Behold, the heroism and courage of the priests of Venezuela

These images, posted by the Venezuela bishops conference on Twitter Friday, show priests intervening to stop tanks moving on a crowd of people in Venezuela.

The story: 

Five young Catholic priests walked in front of tanks and managed to negotiate and stop them from advancing on a crowd gathered near a church on Friday, 28 July. The incident was documented in a number of photographs on the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference Twitter account.

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The controntation took place around 3.30pm in the city of Ejido, in the state of Mérida. A large crowd had gathered for the funeral of Rafael Vergara, a young man who had been killed in one of the many demonstrations taking place around the country. As people walked to the church a number of tanks of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) began moving towards them.

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The priests stopped the funeral, walked towards the tanks and asked them to go away.

Read more about Venezuela and the ongoing crisis here.

Meantime, pray for the country, its people—and give thanks to God for these extraordinary and heroic priests.