Pope Francis used his New Year’s address to highlight his concern over the deteriorating situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua following a prolonged crackdown by the government of President Daniel Ortega, which has arrested religious, expelled missionaries, closed Catholic radio stations and limited their activities. religious celebrations.
Addressing the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional New Year’s Angelus prayer and blessing, Francis said he was “following with concern what is happening in Nicaragua, where bishops and priests were deprived of their liberty.
He expressed his “closeness in prayer with them, their families and the entire Church in the country”, and called on all Catholics to “pray insistently” to find “a path of dialogue to overcome the difficulties”.
“Let us pray for Nicaragua today,” Francis said.
Vatican News reported Monday that at least 14 priests, two seminarians and a bishop have been arrested in recent days in Nicaragua and that the country’s highest Church official, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, expressed his closeness “to the families and communities who are currently without priests.”
Since 2018, as Mr. Ortega has increasingly sidelined political opponents of all stripes, arresting many and suppressing civil rights, the country’s Catholic leaders have remained among the 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 since 2018 there have been dozens of attacks of all kinds against the Church and its institutions, a sign that the Ortega government perceived the “Church as an obstacle”, as “the only beacon capable of illuminating the situation of the Nicaraguan people”.
Church leaders initially attempted to mediate between the government and political opposition, but were unsuccessful, and government repression intensified.
During the long campaign to dismantle the Church’s influence in the country, dozens of clerics and missionaries were arrested or expelled and Catholic institutions were closed.
Since 2018, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been the subject of more than 770 attacks, arrests, expropriations and harassment, including “obstruction of processions, prayers, masses in cemeteries”, as well as messages of hate, according to Martha Patricia Molina, Nicaraguan lawyer. and author of the studyNicaragua: a persecuted Church?»
In August 2022, Archbishop Rolando Álvarez became the highest-ranking cleric detained in Latin America for his political views in decades.
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 open and sincere dialogue, the foundations of respectful and peaceful coexistence can still be found,” Francis said after the weekly Angelus prayer at that time.
In February, Bishop Álvarez was convicted of treason, stripped of his citizenship and sentenced to 26 years in prison.
After the sentencing, Francis again expressed concern and sorrow over the imprisonment, as well as the fate of the clerics deported to the United States.. At the timehe called on the hearts of political leaders to open “to the sincere search for peace, which is born from truth, justice, freedom and love, and which is obtained through the patient pursuit of dialogue”.
In March, the Vatican closed its embassy in Nicaragua, after the Nicaraguan government proposed suspending relations with the Holy See and with its representative in Managua, Mgr. Marcel Diouf has 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 Nicaraguan priests recently released from prison would be married 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 won back the presidency in 2007 and spent a decade undermining the country’s democracy.
Tens of thousands of people rose up against Mr. Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, in 2018, accusing them of being a dictatorial family dynasty. Hundreds of people have been imprisoned for opposing the government. at least 300 were shot dead during protests.
Last year, Mr. Ortega began seizing the properties of political prisoners and dissidents forced into exile, including a leading Jesuit university in Managua, seizing school buildings and bank accounts and accusing the school of being a “center of terrorism”, according to Fides, Catholic news agency.
Throughout the crackdown, the Vatican chose 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 General Assembly. Assembly New York. At the time, Archbishop Gallagher said the Vatican hoped to “engage in respectful diplomatic dialogue for the good of the local Church and the wider population.”
In writing to Fidesjournalist 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 it had encouraged the country’s top cleric, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes of Managua , not to upset the regime.
“A common Vatican strategy, especially under autocratic rule, is to maintain a presence and resist engulfment – working discreetly to limit the state’s most aggressive tactics while seeking to preserve the sacraments and apostolic succession,” Mr. Gaetan wrote.
This approach, he said, was described by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, secretary of state under Pope John Paul II and architect of Vatican diplomacy with communist regimes, as the “martyrdom of patience.”
Mr. Gaetan said Cardinal Brenes was criticized “for his timidity in the face of Ortega’s tightening grip on the Church.” And yet, he writes, “he is alone”.
