The Archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, assured on Wednesday that the beginning of Lent marks a time of reconciliation and “having the ability to forgive” the enemy, although “it costs.”
“It is the time in which to remove from our hearts all those things that prevent us from living according to the spirit of the Lord. And what does the Lord ask of us? Being holy, having the capacity to forgive, loving the enemy, and that sometimes costs,” Brenes told AFP.
Brenes avoided commenting, because he said he did not listen, to the criticisms of President Daniel Ortega, who on Tuesday assured that a “mafia” in the Vatican decided the election of the Catholic hierarchs.
Nor did he refer to the Bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, sentenced to 26 years in prison in Nicaragua almost two weeks ago, after he refused to board a plane along with 222 released prisoners, stripped of their nationality and expelled to the United States.
Related news: Cardinal Brenes calls to “pray” for Monsignor Álvarez, Ortega’s political prisoner
“We are beginning the season of Lent, it is 40 days, with the imposition of ash that reminds us of our smallness, our humility; and just as the dust is a simple thing, the wind comes and takes it away, we too are simple things, ”he added.
“It is the time in which to remove from our hearts all those things that prevent us from living according to the spirit of the Lord. And what does the Lord ask of us?: to be holy, to have the ability to forgive, to love the enemy, and that sometimes costs ”, he added.
At the mass in the Managua Cathedral, Brenes insisted that “the church is very united in a project” of God to live with love and forgiveness.
On Tuesday, President Ortega assured that a “mafia” in the Vatican made the decisions for the election of the Pope and the Catholic hierarchs.
Ortega’s position comes more than a week after Pope Francis was “concerned” and “saddened” by the situation in Nicaragua, especially by Bishop Álvarez, sentenced to 26 years in prison, and by the deportation and dispossession of the nationality of 222 opponents of the United States.
Bishop Álvarez was sentenced for undermining national integrity.
Justice also stripped 94 opponents of their nationality, among them the writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli, and announced that it will confiscate their assets.
Nicaragua toughened its laws to punish opponents in the context of the repression that followed a political and social crisis with street protests that broke out in 2018 against Ortega, in power since 2007 and successively reelected in disputed elections.
