The Church of Nicaragua trusts that the dialogue will help solve the country’s problems as it has done in the past, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes said on Friday, after Pope Francis harshly criticized the government of Daniel Ortega.
“I think it is very difficult to say when the dialogue begins, when it ends. I always think that the dialogue and the work that we have to do is like that drop of water: the drop of water, I always say, does not break the stone by force, but by perseverance,” Cardinal Brenes told AFP. , Archbishop of Managua.
“We in Nicaragua have had very difficult situations in the 80s and nobody thought we could solve it,” he said after the celebration of the Stations of the Cross on the premises of the Managua Cathedral.
In the 1980s, the dialogue helped end the armed conflict that pitted the then leftist Sandinista Front government against the right-wing US-sponsored “contra” rebels.
The Nicaraguan cardinal’s statements occur on the same day that Pope Francis lashed out harshly in an interview with an Argentine digital media against the government headed in Nicaragua by Sandinista President Ortega, which he described as a “rude dictatorship.”
“He expressed the feelings of pain, of sadness that can occur in situations that can occur in countries, but he is always the messenger of peace, a messenger of reconciliation,” he added.
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“And above all, as he told us last time, we have to continue talking. He says that the dialogue must never be cut off because only through dialogue are problems solved, ”she said.
The cardinal added that the Church asked the government to close Caritas, a social aid organization, because it had not received external support six months ago. He added that he did not have details about the closure of two clergy-linked universities, which the government decided this week.
The Ortega government promotes a series of actions against opponents whom it accuses of attempting a coup in 2018, when a social and political crisis occurred with massive demonstrations and clashes between opponents of the ruler and government supporters that left dozens of victims and hundreds of victims. of detainees.
Since 2021, the government promoted the toughening of laws to punish external financing of opponents and arrested more than 200 political, business and religious leaders, including the Bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez.
In February, the government released 220 opponents from prison and expelled them to the United States, stripping them of their nationality. The bishop refused to travel with the group of those released and a court sentenced him to 26 years in prison for undermining national integrity and other charges.
