BOLIVAR, SIMÓN

BOLIVAR, SIMÓN. — Founder of the independent states of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, born on 24 July 1783 at Caracas, died on 17 December 1830 near S. Marta. In 1810 he fought under the orders of General Miranda to liberate Venezuela from Spanish rule, but this attempt failed. Three years later, he led a new struggle for the independence of his homeland, and in 1819 established the republic of Greater Colombia, comprising the present-day states of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In 1824 he became dictator of Peru, and in 1826 protector of Bolivia. Rivalries among the various states made impossible the realization of the great pan-American union of the former Spanish possessions that he envisioned; consequently, deeply embittered, after witnessing the disintegration of his political creation, he withdrew to the Atlantic coast, to an estate belonging to a friend, and died at the age of 47. From the very first emergence of the new situation, the attitude of the Holy See toward the independent states created through B.’s action was attentive to the spiritual questions and interests that it involved and raised; thus, after the battle of Ayacucho (1824), whose outcome definitively ended Spanish rule, Leo XII filled the vacant episcopal sees with prelates proposed by B. The «Libertador», for his part, in 1828 enacted various laws favorable to the Catholic Church.

Silvio Furlani