July 19, 2005 - 1:05 AM

Venezuela church tells Chavez act like a president

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church told President Hugo Chavez on Monday he had failed to behave like a head of state by using a state television broadcast to berate a cardinal who called him a dictator.

Chavez, who has clashed in the past with high-ranking Catholic critics of his self-styled "revolution," on Sunday called retired Cardinal Rosario Castillo a coup-mongering "bandit" and said he had "the devil inside him."

Brandishing a crucifix, the left-wing president used his weekly "Hello President" TV and radio show to rebuke a media interview in which Castillo called his rule a dictatorship.

Speaking out in defense of Castillo, a Venezuelan archbishop said on Monday Chavez had insulted the cardinal while failing to answer his criticisms of the president's six-year-old rule over the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

"The president must understand he is precisely that, the president, and should know how to behave," Monsignor Roberto Luckert, the Archbishop of Coro, told Globovision television.

"He should give an example of respect if he wants to be respected," Luckert added.

The incident was the latest clash between outspoken nationalist Chavez, who says his socialist policies to fight poverty follow the teaching of Christ, and senior church critics in this predominantly Catholic nation. Some bishops accuse him of trying to implant Cuban-style communism.

Chavez, who says he is a Catholic and whose popularity is high in opinion polls, says the bishops are siding with the rich against him.

He said on Sunday that if Christ was alive today he would be a "radical socialist" and back his policies to use oil wealth to finance health and education for the poor. He says Venezuela's Catholic hierarchy supported a brief coup against him in 2002.

Luckert said the Church did not seek to topple Chavez. "But what I want the president and his team to understand is that there are things that are not working well and should be corrected for the good of the nation," he said.

Despite the millions of petrodollars the president had spent on social programs, the archbishop said, problems like health, crime and unemployment were unsolved.

"If you disagree with the government, you are immediately dismissed ... as a coup-monger, a terrorist," Luckert said.

He recalled that Chavez had himself led a failed coup attempt six years before he won a 1998 election.

"He calls everyone a coup-monger and forgets his own history," Luckert said. Chavez was attending a summit of Andean leaders in Lima, Peru, on Monday.