In news that doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of American press, José Mujica, the President of Uruguay, made a reference to his own atheism this week when speaking about the ailing Hugo Chavez:

Reader David Osorio was kind enough to translate:

“I still have not been able to believe in God… if such an important man exists I hope he gives a helping hand to the poor in Latin America by defending the health of the commander,” said Mujica.

Ignoring for the moment the suggestion that Chavez is the solution to poverty in Latin America, it’s not very often that a sitting president makes a declaration like that.

Even stranger (at least from my American perspective) is how that barely seems to register as “news.”



