The dictator Daniel Ortega ordered the rupture of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, the highest institution of the Catholic Church in the world. The decision was made a few hours after an interview was published in which Pope Francis described it as a “Hitlerian dictatorship” to the Government of Nicaragua, whose top leader, Daniel Ortega, commented —“with great respect”— that he suffers from “an imbalance”.
Diplomatic sources in Rome confirmed to CONFIDENTIAL that the representative of the Sandinista government before the Holy See “verbally” communicated the break in relations in the Vatican Secretariat of State, in Rome, alluding to the declarations of the Holy Father, in which for the first time he referred forcefully to the regime attacks against the Catholic Church. The pope praised jailed Bishop Rolando José Álvarez: “There we have a prisoner bishop, a very serious man, very capable. He wanted to give his testimony and did not accept exile ”.
In this way, Ortega and Murillo will put an end to a diplomatic relationship of at least 115 years, since Relations between Nicaragua and the Holy See were born in 1908. However, the coexistence between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church has been marked by friction and mistrust in the last 43 years.
Nicaragua will also enter a small group of thirteen countries that do not maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See, four of them have communist governments —Vietnam, North Korea, China and Laos— and eight are Muslims —Somalia, Oman, Mauritania, Maldives, Comoro Islands, Brunei, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia—the other is Bhutan, a Buddhist kingdom in South Asia.
According to the diplomatic source in Rome, “the representative of the Nunciature in Managua was given a week to leave the country.”
Monsignor Mbaye Diouf, secretary of the Nunciature, has been in charge of the Vatican diplomatic mission -as charge d’affaires- since the beginning of March last year, after the dictatorship de facto expelled the apostolic nuncio, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag.
Similar to Diouf, the Ortega y Murillo regime verbally notified the apostolic nuncio to leave Nicaragua. On Saturday, March 5, 2022, Deputy Foreign Minister Arlette Marenco notified the papal representative that she had ten ten to leave the country; however, after consultation with the Holy See, Monsignor Sommertag abandoned his diplomatic mission the following day at night —Sunday, March 6—, without saying goodbye to the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN) or the diplomatic corps accredited in the country.
“The Holy See never leaves. They kick her out”
With the expulsion of the nuncio in 2022, a period of hostility, persecution and harassment against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua intensified. The Government —through its repressive machinery, headed by the National Police— has closed Catholic radio stations, desecrated churches, expelled nuns from the Missionaries of Charity order, prohibited processions, imprisoned and sentenced a bishop, exiled and declared “stateless”. eight priests.
Besides, Ortega has called the Nicaraguan bishops “terrorists” and “coup plotters”whom he has also accused —without evidence— of being accomplices of internal forces and international groups that, in his opinion, “act in Nicaragua to overthrow him.”
The case to which Pope Francis referred is that of Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, who is confined to a maximum security cell in the La Modelo penitentiary system, in Managua, and was illegally sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison for alleged crimes considered “treason,” after he refused to be exiled.
Monsignor refused to get on a plane that would take him, along with 222 other Nicaraguan political prisoners releasedall opponents, towards the United States, which provoked the fury of Ortega, who branded him as “arrogant”, “insane” and “energúmeno”.
Despite the regime’s incessant attacks against the Church and priests, the Supreme Pontiff has constantly called for dialogue. “The Holy See never leaves. They kick her out. She always tries to save diplomatic relations and save what can be saved with patience and dialogue ”, the pope said last December in an interview with the Spanish newspaper ABC.
Ortega’s attacks and the Pope’s interview with Infobae
The papal calls for dialogue did not calm or minimize the attacks of the dictatorship. The National Police, whose supreme chief is Ortega, prohibited the Catholic Church from celebrating viacrusis processions during Lent and Holy Week this year.
During the commemoration of the 89th anniversary of the death of Augusto C. Sandino, at the end of last February, the Sandinista caudillo described the priests, bishops and popes as “a mafia” They do not represent the principles of God or of Christ.
“Who chooses the pope? How many votes does the Pope get among what is the Christian people? If we are going to talk about democracy, the people should first elect the priests of the people (…) let the people decide and not the mafia that is organized in the Vatican”, Ortega thundered.
In a recent interview with the Argentine media infobaethe highest Catholic hierarch was consulted about the latest attacks and replied: “with great respect, I have no choice but to think about an imbalance in the person who leads (Daniel Ortega).”
For Francisco, the situation in Nicaragua “is something that is outside of what we are experiencing, it is as if it were bringing the (Russian) communist dictatorship of 1917 or the Hitlerian (Nazi) dictatorship of 1935, bringing the same here.”
“They are a type of rude dictatorships. Or, to use a cute distinction from Argentina, guarangas,” he said.
Pope Francis, 86, will celebrate this Monday, March 13, ten years at the head of the Catholic Church, a period in which he has focused his efforts on reforming the Holy See to make it more transparent and effective, not without the opposition of the most conservative sectors of the Vatican.
