Pope expresses concerns about church in Nicaragua
Pope Francis used his New Year’s address to highlight concern over the deteriorating situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua due to the prolonged crackdown by President Daniel Ortega’s government, which has detained clergy, expelled missionaries, closed Catholic radio stations and limited religious celebrations.
In his address to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional New Year’s prayer and the blessing of the Angelus, Francis said he was “following with concern what is happening in Nicaragua, where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom.”
He expressed his “closeness in prayer to them, their families and the entire Church in the country,” and called on all Catholics to “pray urgently” to “find a path of dialogue to overcome difficulties.”
“Today let us pray for Nicaragua,” Francis said.
Vatican news reported on Monday that at least fourteen priests, two seminarians and a bishop have been arrested in Nicaragua in recent days, and that the country’s top church leader, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, has expressed his solidarity “with the families and communities who are currently without their priests .”
Since 2018, as Mr Ortega has done more and more political opponents are being sidelined Coming from all walks of life, the country’s Catholic leaders, many imprisoned and civil rights suppressed, were among the country’s only independent voices of dissent.
Gianni La Bella, professor of contemporary history at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, said in a 2022 interview that dozens of different types of attacks on the Church and its institutions have taken place since 2018, a sign that the Ortega government saw the ‘Church as an obstacle’, as the ‘only beacon that can shed light on the circumstances of the people of Nicaragua.’
Church leaders initially tried to mediate between the government and the political opposition, but this failed and the government’s crackdown intensified.
In the long campaign for dismantle the church’s reach Dozens of clergy and missionaries have been arrested or expelled in the country, and Catholic institutions have been closed.
Since 2018, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been subject to more than 770 attacks, arrests, expropriations and intimidation, including “obstacles to processions, prayers, masses in cemeteries” and messages of hate, according to Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer. and author of the study “Nicaragua: a persecuted church?”
In August 2022, Bishop Rolando Álvarez became the highest-ranking pastor in decades to be detained in Latin America for political views.
After his arrest Pope Francis spoke of “his concern and sadness” about the situation in Nicaragua. “I would like to express my conviction and hope that, through an open and sincere dialogue, the basis for a respectful and peaceful coexistence can still be found,” Francis said at the time after the weekly Angelus prayer.
In February, Bishop Álvarez was convicted of treason, stripped of his citizenship and sentenced to 26 years in prison.
After the verdict, Francis again spoke of his concern and sadness over the imprisonment, as well as the fate of clerics deported to the United States.. At the timehe called on the hearts of political leaders to be open “to the sincere search for peace, which arises from truth, justice, freedom and love, and which is achieved through the patient pursuit of dialogue.”
In March, the Vatican closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the Nicaraguan government proposed cutting ties with the Holy See and its representative in Managua, Mgr. Marcel Diouf left the country for Costa Rica, The Associated Press reported. The Vatican ambassador had been forced to leave a year earlier.
Some of the imprisoned clerics have been released, and in October the Vatican announced that 12 priests from Nicaragua, recently released from prison, would be housed in the diocese of Rome.
In 1979, Mr. Ortega led the Sandinista revolution that overthrew the corrupt dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Mr Ortega lost elections in 1990 but regained the presidency in 2007, spending a decade eroding the country’s democracy.
Tens of thousands of people stood up against Mr. Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, accused them in 2018 of being a dictatorial family dynasty. Hundreds of people ended up in prison for opposing the government minimum 300 were shot during protests.
Mr. Ortega started last year seize the properties of political prisoners and dissidents forced into exile, including a prominent Jesuit-run university in Managua, with school buildings and bank accounts seized and the school accused of being a “center of terrorism,” according to Fides, a Catholic news agency.
During the repressive crackdown, the Vatican has chosen to keep the doors of communication with the government open.
On Monday, Francis spoke of finding a “path of dialogue to overcome difficulties,” echoing what Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for relations with states and international organizations, said last September at the opening of the 78th session of the United Nations. New York General Assembly. At the time, Archbishop Gallagher had said the Vatican hoped to “engage in a respectful diplomatic dialogue for the good of the local Church and of the entire population.”
To write in FidesThe journalist Victor Gaetan, author of a book on Vatican diplomacy, wrote that the Vatican’s strategy was to engage in dialogue with the government and that this had prompted the country’s top cleric, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes of Managua encouraged not to antagonize the regime.
“A common Vatican strategy, especially under an autocratic regime, is to remain present and resist engulfment – quietly working to limit the state’s most aggressive tactics while pursuing the preservation of the sacraments and the apostolic succession , wrote Mr Gaetan.
The approach, he said, was described by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, foreign minister under Pope John Paul II and architect of Vatican diplomacy with communist regimes, as the “martyrdom of patience.”
Mr. Gaetan said Cardinal Brenes has been criticized “for being timid in the face of Ortega’s tightening noose on the Church.” And yet, he wrote, “he stands alone.”