Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church on Monday rejected President Hugo Chavez's claims it was involved in a brief 2002 coup.
Chavez said Sunday that Catholic bishops and a cardinal participated in the April 2002 rebellion that briefly ousted him. Loyalist troops restored Chavez to power within 48 hours.
"There are bishops from the Catholic Church who knew a coup was on the way and they used church installations to bring coup plotters together," Chavez said. He called clerics "immoral" and "spokesmen for the opposition."
Monsignor Baltazar Porras said Monday that Chavez's remarks during the president's weekly talk show were meant to "distract public attention from the real problems confronting our society."
Porras, head of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference that represents the Roman Catholic Church in Venezuela, defended Venezuelans' right to demand a recall vote on Chavez's term, which ends in 2007.
Chavez vows that the vote will not happen and recently has accused innumerable opponents of plotting yet another coup.
Chavez, a self-proclaimed leftist revolutionary, lashed out at the church after it alerted Venezuelans Sunday to the country's deepening crisis.
The president has taken on the church despite its prominence in Venezuela. More than 80 percent of Venezuelans approve of the church's work for the country, according to a poll released Monday by Datanalisis polling firm, while Chavez's approval ratings were about 36 percent.
The poll of 1,300 adults nationwide was conducted between Sept. 10-16 and had a margin of error of 2.7 percent.
Venezuela's church has claimed that Chavez is trying to impose communism. Chavez has called the church a "tumor."
Venezuela is divided between those who see Chavez as the only president to stand up for the poor and those who accuse him of ruining the economy and becoming increasingly authoritarian.