Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela who has denounced the Roman Catholic hierarchy as a tumour had a fractious private audience with the Pope today, where he was told to respect the church and scale back his anti-Catholic reforms.

Señor Chávez, on a tour of Europe which will see him visit London - but not Downing Street - next week, has been embroiled in an on-off row with the Catholic church in Venezuela ever since he was elected President in late 1998.

Relations deteriorated to breaking point in early 2002, when he accused priests of taking part in a coup against him, and despite his own vigorously-professed Catholicism, Señor Chávez has clashed with the church several times this year, notably when the country's senior priest Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara accused him of leading the country towards dictatorship.

Priests across the country have accused Señor Chávez of failing to use Venezuela's enormous oil wealth to adequately fight the country's widespread poverty.

Today Pope Benedict XVI told Señor Chávez of the Vatican's concerns over plans for education reforms that would lessen the role of religion in Venezuela's schools. The Pope also asked Señor Chávez to ensure that health programmes "respect life", an apparent objection to abortion clinics.

According to Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Pope also made a specific reference to a proposal to remove the word "Catholic" from the name of the Santa Rosa Catholic University in Caracas and asked that Catholic media be able to report independently in the country.

Although tense, today's meeting forms part of a gradual rapprochement between Señor Chávez and the Vatican.

In February, weeks after the Venezuelan leader accused Cardinal Lara of "provocation", the Pope promoted Jorge Urosa Savino, the moderate Archbishop of Caracas, to cardinal in a move that was interpreted as a gesture of conciliation to Señor Chávez.

The Venezuelan President, a self-styled Latin American liberator who casts himself as a latter-day Simon Bolivar, gave the Pope the portrait of the founder of Bolivia, who was born in modern-day Venezuela, at their meeting today.

Looking ahead to his audience, Señor Chávez told the Italian press he was keen to talk about poverty with the pontiff and insisted that his Government had Christian principles. The vast majority of Venezuela's population of 27 million is Catholic.

"Our Bolivarian revolution is very Christian and I have a friend who isn’t Christian, but lately has said he is a Christian in the social aspect: his name is Fidel Castro," said Señor Chávez.

The Venezuelan President's next stop is Vienna, where he will join a summit of Latin American and European leaders. Señor Chávez will also tour Libya and Algeria as well as London, where he has decided not to visit Downing Street, instead meeting Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, and members of the TUC.

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