Rome, Italy | AFP | The Vatican said this Saturday it received with “surprise and pain” the decision of the Nicaraguan government to withdraw the approval of the nuncio in Managua since 2018, “imposing him to leave the country immediately,” it said in a statement.
The Holy See described this decision as “incomprehensible” “because during his mission Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag has worked tirelessly for the good of the Church and the Nicaraguan people.”
The nuncio left the country last Sunday, as AFP learned this week from a diplomatic source.
The president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, Bishop Carlos Herrera, affirmed on Channel 10 on Tuesday that relations “were not good” between Sommertag and the government of Daniel Ortega, and that Pope Francis was probably going to ask him to resign.
But in its statement, the Vatican said it received “with surprise and pain” the notification that the government had withdrawn its consent to Nuncio Sommertag, “forcing him to leave the country immediately.”
An “incomprehensible” order, they explain in their statement, since the nuncio worked “tirelessly” for the Catholic Church and the people of Nicaragua, seeking to “promote good relations” between the authorities and the Holy See.
The Vatican affirms that it is convinced “that this serious and unjustified unilateral decision does not reflect the sentiments of the people of Nicaragua, deeply Christian.”
The permanent representative of the Vatican arrived in Managua in May 2018, when the country was hit by massive anti-government demonstrations, in which the Catholic Church mediated to find a way out of the crisis.
The nuncio participated as a witness in the second stage of a dialogue, held in 2019, which was suspended without results.
Relations between the government and the bishops of the Catholic Church are tense, after the 2018 protests. The ruling party accuses the clergy of having colluded with its opponents for a coup, as it describes these demonstrations.
Daniel Ortega, 76, was re-elected for a fourth term in November.
More than 40 critics of the government were arrested in Nicaragua between June and December 2021, including seven potential electoral rivals of Ortega. Added to this group are another 120 people imprisoned for participating in the 2018 anti-government protests.
