The main news story that has occupied the attention of Nicaragua in these days was an event that happened in the Cathedral on Friday July 31 at 11:00am. Several witnesses claimed seeing a hooded man come into the Blood of Christ Eucharistic Chapel and throw an incendiary device, which consumed the tabernacle and seriously burned a 382 year old Crucifix known as the Blood of Christ statue. Less than an hour later, In the First Lady´s customary noon time address to the nation, Rosario Murillo attributed the fire to votive candles in the chapel that people had lit for their prayer intentions. But Cardinal Brenes immediately refuted that claim, pointing out that the chapel has no candles, clearly stating it was a well-prepared terrorist attack on the church, one of four other attacks on Catholic Churches in Nicaraguan in the preceding three weeks.
What follows is the original story published by La Prensa an hour and a half after the attack, and then the story that appeared on Sunday with the later developments related to the different press releases issued by the Police.
Cardinal Brenes on the attack on the Cathedral of Managua: “This was a planned attack…it is an act of terrorism” by Yubelka Mendoza González and Cinthya Torrez García
La Prensa, July 31, 2020
According to witnesses, a man entered and just said, “I come to the Blood of Christ”, he was hooded and carried something in his hand. Rosario Murillo implied that the fire was due to “candles that the parishioners light”, but the Cardinal denied that that was the cause.
An unidentified man this Friday July 31 threw a Molotov bomb into the chapel of the Cathedral of Managua, which caused a fire that burnt the image of the Blood of Christ. “This was a planned act, planned very calmly”, pronounced Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes.
According to witnesses, the man entered and just said, “I come to the Blood of Christ.” The subject was wearing a hood and had something in his hand, but the witnesses were not able to identify what it was.
After talking to the witnesses, the Cardinal stated that the person responsible spent more than 20 minutes walking around the Cathedral before throwing the bomb. “He even planned how he was going to leave. There is a grate that was stolen a little while ago and he went out through there. In other words, he calculated everything: how to enter, where to do it, and then how to escape. This was planned,” he affirmed.
Within the chapel there was a church worker, and a parishioner praying, who were the ones who saw the man throw the device and advised the authorities about the fire.
Alba Ramirez, a witness, stated that the man who threw the bomb is known. “It is a lot of hate (for the Catholic Church), those people are messing with God…sooner or later that person who was sent is going to pay, they are going to burn in hell. We adore that statue because that image represents the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,” said Ramirez.
Brenes was emphatic in stating that this was a terrorist act. “This is how I want to clearly state it: this is a terrorist act, an act to intimidate the church in its evangelizing mission.”
The Archdiocese of Managua described the act as “as act of sacrilege and completely reprehensible desecration.” He added that “we need to remain in constant prayer to defeat malignant forces.” Along the same lines, Cardinal Brenes pronounced that “this was an incendiary act of terrorism.”
The church housed the image of the Blood of Christ, that is 382 years old. It was left completely charred. “With the heat, half of the face came off, but the statue was left charred, we are going to evaluate calmly because it is a precious statue that is over 300 years old,” Brenes said.
Concerning those responsible for the act, the Archbishop of Managua stated that it was not the style of the church to accuse anyone, but yes to denounce. “I think that time will accuse them. We see how many who have attacked us later have perished. As the Cardinal said one day,` the church always sees the funeral of its persecutors go by,´” exclaimed Brenes.
The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, said in his Twitter account that he was in communication with the sisters and priests of the Cathedral after the fire. “We have wept together on account of the fire that has occurred in the chapel of the venerated statue of the Blood of Christ. My closeness and prayers with the people of Nicaragua in this painful moment! Wrote Báez.
Rosario Murillo implies that the cause were candles
The designated Vice President of the country implied, in her customary daily communication, that the fire in the chapel was due to the “candles that the parishioners light who always seek to pay promises to our Saints, in this case, to our Sacred Blood of Christ.”
With this discourse, the First Lady did not condemn the attack against the Catholic Church, and only said that one should always take precautions with candles, and that they will await the assessment of the firefighters.
“Unfortunately this fire happened, it combusted, the aluminum structure was burned, the curtains and the flowers that adorned it,” mentioned Murillo and added that the firefighters as well as the Police experts are investigating, and in the coming hours are going to issue the report on the causes of the fire.
“We have asked them to be quick so that we might have all the necessary information about the causes of that fire. Unfortunately, we people do not understand that candles have to be placed at a certain distance from the statues so that events like this one do not happen, and let us always try to take care of our cultural patrimony,” she stated.
About this, Cardinal Brenes denied that the candles had anything to do with this. “Inside the chapel there are no candles, and nor do we have curtains. In other words, we cannot think that the fire, in quotes, could have had that cause,” pronounced the Cardinal.
Recent attacks
The attack on the Cathedral this Friday is one more aggression that the Catholic Church of the country has recently suffered. Last Wednesday, the chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Nindirí, Masaya was desecrated by unidentified people. The criminals stole the monstrance and the ciborium, broke statues, defiled the tabernacle, trampled on the hosts, broke pews, damaged furniture, doors and pipes, denounced the parish.
Prior to the attack on Nindirí, this past July 25th another attack was registered in the chapel of the parish of Our Lord of Veracruz in Masaya. It was desecrated by unknown people who stole microphones, cables, amplifiers, speakers, and collection boxes. That desecration was denounced, also through facebook, by the priest Pablo Villafranca, the pastor of Our Lord of Veracruz, who stated that on that occasion that the attack caused him “a sense of powerlessness, pain and frustration.”
“We see in all of these (attacks) a series of details that concern us,” said Brenes this Friday, and called the faithful to remain in prayer.
The US Ambassador in Nicaragua, Kevin K. Sullivan, condemned the attack on the chapel of the Cathedral, and called on the authorities so that “these events be investigated in depth, and those responsible tried in accordance with the law,” in reference to the other attacks that Catholic Churches have suffered in several cities of the country.
“We share the profound pain of the Catholic Community of Nicaragua over the damage caused to the sacred statue that has survived natural disasters and has been venerated by generations of Nicaraguans,” stated the US ambassador.
Orteguista Police Interrogate Witnesses for Six Hours
By Leonor Álvarez and Yubelka Mendoza
Published in La Prensa printed version, Sunday, August 2, 2020
Two were detained and then the “story” of the candle attributed to them.
After an interrogation of at least six hours of the witnesses to the attack on the Blood of Christ chapel in the Cathedral, Xiomara de Jesús Castro, candle seller, and Manuel Salvador Bravo Álvarado, the Orteguista Police (OP) issued a new press release where they attributed the fire to the existence of a candle in the site of the incident.
In this way the OP made this new version coincide with what was said on Friday by the Vice President, Rosario Murillo, that the fire had been caused by an accident with the candles that the parishioners place on the altar.
Nevertheless, Castro, prior to being taken against her will to the Judicial Support Office known as El Chipote, maintained that there were no candles in the chapel.
The detention of Castro was carried out within the Cathedral, where a large number of police arrived yesterday morning [Saturday, August 1] led by the General Commissioner of the OP, Glenda Zavala, head of the Crime and Forensic Science Institute.
Zavala entered the burned chapel with an entourage of officers and was asking questions of the people who had been in the church at the time of the explosion. Zavala spoke with Castro and repeatedly asked her about the possibility that there were candles on the Blood of Christ altar. The witness repeated no, and she also said that she did not believe that the spray bottle that the Police found intact in the site of the incident would have caused the explosion that caused the fire.
Spray bottle and candle
Even so, the second press release issued by the OP yesterday afternoon, stated that the fire was caused by the spray bottle with alcohol [for hand disinfecting], and now also mentions a high candelabra where supposedly every day a candle is lit.
The version of the candle did not appear in the first press release from the OP, issued on Friday around 8:00pm, not until this Saturday. The person who mentioned the candles as the cause of the fire was Murillo less than an hour after the fire occurred. She said that “the candles that the faithful light who are always looking for how to pay promises to our Saints, in this case, to Our Sacred Blood of Christ”, and “unfortunately we people do not understand that candles have to be placed at a certain distance from the statues so that events like this do not happen, and let us try to always take care of our cultural patrimony.”
But that information has been repeatedly refuted by his eminence, Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes Solórzano, since the day of the attack.
“Inside the chapel there are no candles, and nor do we have curtains. In other words, we cannot think that the origin of the fire, in quotes, is that, pronounced the cardinal, who in addition described the event as “a terrorist act, an act to intimidate the church in its evangelizing mission.”
The OP stated that they interviewed Castro and she supposedly told them that “inside the chapel every day at 7:00am a sacristan lights a candle placed in a high candelabra, like a meter high, that is found in front of the dome of the Blood of Christ statue.”
The OP also enhanced the version of the candle with the testimony of the parishioner Bravo Alvarado, 70 years of age, who presumably told them that “inside the chapel he has always seen a high candelabra with a lit candle in front of the dome of the Blood of Christ statue.”
Also it was known that Alba Ramirez, another one of the eyewitnesses of the attack, and who on Friday gave several interviews to the media stating that a hooded man was the person who caused the explosion in the chapel, was also taken from her home by the OP this Saturday, according to a denouncement by her husband to civil organizations.
The OP also discarded the version of Ramirez in their second press release.
They cite in the written release that at the moment of the fire in the chapel, only Bravo and Castro were present – the candle seller – and that they “did not see any one who would have thrown any object, nor did they hear any explosion.”