Monsignor Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua, spoke out this Sunday, February 5, 2023, against the indifference of Christians, whom he asked not to be silent and to accept the “normality” imposed on societies by weapons and fear, while the Church, asked her not to be “insipid”.
The Carmelite religious has been in exile since 2019 at the request of Pope Francis, after receiving threats from Sandinista fanatics. This new message was given during the mass that he officiated from Santa Agatha parish in Miami, in a homily in which he reflected on the theme of light and darkness in the sacred scriptures.
For Báez, the Catholic Church must preserve and care for the people, preventing the people from becoming fearful, pessimistic in the face of adversity and passive in the face of injustice. His words coincide with a repressive escalation by the Daniel Ortega regime against the Church. The dictatorship made the Bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, a political prisoner, recognized for his pastoral voicehis denunciation against power and the defense of human rights.
The State accused Álvarez of “conspiracy” and “propagation of false news” in a process devoid of procedural guarantees.
“The Church cannot be insipid. We Christians become insipid if we allow fear to make us live with our backs to reality, if we silence the truth in a society dominated by lies, if we allow pessimism to eat away at the hope of the people”, said the Catholic hierarch.
The Nicaraguan dictatorship has been merciless with the Matagalpa Curia. He issued an official letter for the same case of Álvarez against the exiled priest Uriel Vallejos; he sentenced the priest Oscar Benavidez; and is processing four more; in addition to two seminarians and a cameraman, who accompanied the bishop, when he was transferred by the Police to a family residence on August 19.
Báez insisted that, in a society dominated by cannibalism, violent irrationality and the cruelty of power, citizens can do things differently with their authenticity, and when compassion and kindness are introduced, “when you cry with someone who cries ” and it is unit factor.
“We become insipid if we allow ideologies to prevail over our faith and if we collaborate with our indifference so that a forced normality imposed by weapons and fear continues to be imposed,” he stressed.
The message against “the darkness” of Monsignor Silvio Báez
The bishop spoke out against the darkness of pessimism, fear, the ambition for power and indifference to the pain of others.
Nicaragua survives the prolongation of the dictatorship of Ortega and his family, in power since 2007, which keeps 235 political prisoners in jail, has violated freedom of expression and association, based on a de facto police state that punishes any type of dissent.
On January 31, Báez questioned on his Twitter account what is happening in Nicaragua, where, according to what he said, “he commands a gang of criminals, disguised as politicians.”
“A state without justice would be a band of thieves.” This phrase of St. Augustine was quoted today by the Pope when he arrived in the Congo. That State that Saint Augustine imagined would “be”, “already is” in some countries such as #Nicaraguawhere he commands a gang of criminals disguised as politicians.
— Silvio José Báez (@silviojbaez) January 31, 2023
The persecution of the Church intensified in 2022 with the prohibition of religious celebrations, the expulsion of the apostolic nuncio, 18 nuns of charity, the sentences of a priest from Nandaime and another from Boaco, but also because the parishioners and the temples are monitored by government party intelligence for critics.
Given this adverse context, the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua and Pope Francis have been criticized for their “prudence” in the face of the virulent attack by Ortega and Murillo, who have spread hate speech against the faith at different times since 2018.
Báez affirms that, in the face of the “darkness of the lie”, of those who use it to dominate and deceive, “it must be illuminated with the humble announcement of the truth and the courageous denunciation of the falsehoods of the powerful”.
