Political analyst Israel Lewites assures that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo decided to “launch head-on” against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua because it has not yet been able to “bend the arm” of the religious, who they have a popular identity and “tremendous support” in the country.
In an interview for NOW the podcast of Article 66Lewites pointed out that the regime “has been undermining all the spaces for citizen participation that could exist in society (…) and already emboldened they decided to launch themselves head-on” against the Nicaraguan Church.
Likewise, he explained that the regime had previously attacked the Church as it is currently doing. “First they did it with (Monsignor) Silvio Báez, where they sent him into exile to supposedly protect his safety,” said the analyst.
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He added that the Ortega-Murillos encountered an obstacle on this occasion, since Monsignor Rolando Alvarez “He has shown a much tougher attitude, always critical of the abuses of the dictatorshipof the atrocities committed against the Nicaraguan people.
“And in this verticality that Monsignor (Álvarez) has shown as a spiritual leader of tremendous moral height, well what the dictatorship has had is to resort to one more of its illegalitiesto kidnapping, to pressure and to put the Church right now in a very complicated situation where there are a dozen priests, religious, people who are being kidnapped,” he stressed.
Therefore, Israel Lewites argued that with the repressive escalation that the Ortega-Murillo regime has ordered against the Catholic Church, he is telling the ecclesiastical authorities “that no matter who you are, in Nicaragua silence is kept inside or you suffer the consequences, the consequences are kidnapping, exile or death.”
Pope Francis negotiates with diplomacy
The political analyst explained that Pope Francis is the head of the Church in Nicaragua and “like any head of state, he has to handle himself within the sphere of diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy is a very subtle art and he (Pope Francis) must be quite cautious to safeguard the security of its people in Nicaragua”, since “it has many people committed to the territory”.
In addition, Lewites considers that the Vatican “is seeing how it negotiates this situation to avoid further damage to its faithful.”
«I know that it is frustrating for many Nicaraguans that the pope is not more frontal, that his denunciation is not much more explicit and clear against a regime that is clearly abominable, indefensible; but hey, he has to play within his scope », he stated.
