Regime is working on the eradication of the territorial structure of the Catholic Church
By DIVERGENTES, June 27, 2023
An official spokesperson announced the intensification of the repression against “The political secretaries of the Vatican”, referring to the priests in the country. The Church is not a political organization like the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship wants to present it, “but a corporation which preaches what the Bible mandates: truth and justice,” says the political scientist José Alcázar. Nevertheless, the government is afraid that the social leadership of the religious institution might be a breeding ground for expressions of opposition to the social and political crisis.
The aggressive persecution of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo against bishops, priests and nuns of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has an objective and two fundamental reasons: the purpose is to crush an international corporation with a strong territorial structure and with a solid hierarchical line which descends from the Vatican, explained analysts consulted by DIVERGENTES. The motivations are the “visceral hatred” toward an organization which does not bend itself to the orders of a totalitarian regime and the fear that a future citizen uprising might originate in this sector.
“The Catholic Church is an institution which has been in existence more than 2,000 years and therefore has a very strong level of organization and coordination. The dictatorship sees the Church as a unique adversary and enemy. They have an erroneous concept because they believe that the bishops and priests are organizing the opposition within the country, or that they are serving as a connection for the international community. That, without a doubt, is illogical,” explained Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, lawyer and expert on religious issues.
The political scientist José Alcázar agreed with Molina and added that the Church is the last institution which is left among those that “can stand up” to the Ortega-Murillo regime, after the criminalization and closure of non-governmental organizations, civil society groups, communications media, intellectuals and even the Red Cross. The Church also has had their share: up until the end of 2022 the dictatorship had cancelled the licenses of thirteen communications media administered by the Catholic Church. It has also ordered the closure of at least 32 nonprofit organizations and Catholic universities which used to support low-income people.
“Everything has been terminated. And this is key for a regime which fears what they call “mass uprisings.” That is why they have prohibited processions and other religious activities, because they also are afraid that the laity might express their discontent in those activities and that someone might take out a flag, that they might shout out a slogan,” stated, Alcázar. The political scientist insisted that the Church is not a political organization as the regime wants to present it, “but a corporation which preaches what the Bible mandates: truth and justice.”
A study titled “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” done by Molina Montenegro, systematized all the attacks occurred against the faithful and religious leaders since the beginning of the social explosion of 2018 up until the first quarter of 2023. According to the document, this year 90 attacks against the Church were registered, more than half of those tabulated in all of 2022.
The third version of the report analyzes a new pattern carried out by the dictatorship which attempts to silence the voices within the Catholic clergy and faithful. Molina recalled that in Holy Week, one of the most important commemorations for Catholic believers, 3,176 processions in 397 parishes were prohibited. The Sandinista rulers ordered that the Way of the Crosses should not go into the streets and confined the believers within the perimeters of their churches.
One of the last forms of repression of the regime against the religious leaders was the closure of the personal bank accounts of priests, which happened after blocking the bank accounts of the Diocese of Managua, Matagalpa in the northern part of the country; and the Diocese of León and Chinandega in the west.
After closing the accounts of the Dioceses, the Police of the regime reported in a press release that they had launched investigations after the discovery of “hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden in bags located in installations belonging to the Dioceses of the country,” and accused “people connected to them” of committing illicit acts.
Concerning the freezing of the bank accounts, Alcázar explained that it is a decision motivated by “rage and vengeance” but directed toward the Vatican because of the recent declarations of Pope Francis where he referred to the Sandinista regime as a “crude dictatorship” with shades of a “communist or Hitlerian dictatorship,” managed by a person with an “imbalance.”
“The Episcopal Conference does not now have a correlation of forces which makes it particularly adverse to the Government, as it did have at the time of the 2018 rebellion. In other words, at that moment there was Silvio Báez in Nicaragua, Mons. Abelardo Mata was active and bishop Rolando Álvarez, who now is in jail. Those three imposed a character on the Episcopal Conference. The current one is full of timid people. So the objective of the regime is to demonstrate to the Vatican that they are going to pursue this regardless of the consequences,” said the political scientist.
Sandinista mouthpiece confirms the plan of annihilation
The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has eight dioceses and one archdiocesis. Its scope, according to Molina Montenegro, is nearly the entire country; in addition, it has a hierarchy which is obedient to the basic guidelines of the religion itself. Each priest, she explains, owes obedience to his bishop, and the bishop in turn to the dispositions which come down from the Vatican.
“If something is directed from the Episcopal Conference, that order is absolutely going to get to all the priests who are in the country. And the directive must be obeyed. This is how the Church functions,” explained the expert on religious issues.
Molina Montenegro indicated that since the regime has not been able to dismantle the structure which the Church has, it then is inventing cases, like the one about money laundering, in order to suffocate little by little the religious institution, and silence the bishops, priests and nuns who remain in the country.
The theory of the expert on religious issues coincides with the declaration that William Grigsby Vado made on May 31st, one of the principal spokespeople who has the propaganda apparatus of the regime, during his program Sin Fronteras.
Grigsby Vado pointed out that the Ortega-Murillo regime is the “victim” of a conspiracy led by the Vatican and the United States Government, and that the implementors of the plot are the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua.
“The yankees have worked with the Church as a political party…excuse me, with the Catholic hierarchy as a political party, because it is the only territorial organization of the country which is not Sandinista. They have delegates in all the municipalities with political secretaries, who are the pastors, who penetrate deep into society and in addition manage resources,” expressed the Director also of the pro-government Radio La Primerísima.
In addition to confirming that the Sandinista regime is watching the “territorial organization” of the Church in Nicaragua, Grigsby Vado confessed in his monologue that to the extent that the opposition in Nicaragua was “left reduced to nothing”, the only institution that could stand up to the dictatorship was the Church. For that reason, to “avoid the repetition” (April 2018 rebellion) they tackled “the problems from the outset.”
“The yankees concentrated their efforts on the parish structure of the Catholic hierarchy and have worked for a long time sowing dissention, working on slogans, recruiting people and thugs hand in hand with the political secretaries of the Vatican in the parishes of Nicaragua. It is assumed that priests are servants. When they now move to destabilizing political activity to conspire against a legitimately elected government in a constitutional framework, they separate themselves from the Catholic area and turn themselves into subversive, Anti-State political leaders, and so must be treated as such,” said the Sandinista mouthpiece.
Grigsby Vado pointed out that religious leaders act with the blessing of the Vatican and explained that if they cancelled processions in Nicaragua, it is because they “form part of a strategy to sow chaos, violent actions and incidents” which the regime supposedly knew about beforehand because the Police infiltrated the Church.
“We are going to keep them from doing it (the chaos and violent actions). And we are going to hope that the priests settle down, that they become reasonable, that they go back to their pastoral activities, that they leave behind political conspiracy and the intention to overthrow the government, that they quit obeying the slogans of US imperialism…if they do that, then we will go back to normal, but as long as they are behaving like that, what are we going to do?” said the Sandinista mouthpiece.
Concerning the declarations of Grigsby Vado, Alcázar says that the spokesperson amplifies what is thought at the top of the regime about the Church, in other words, they are afraid that within the heart of this institution “masses are rising up” and a local leadership might emerge which would be in opposition.
“They fear that force that the Church has, because it is not an NGO, it is an international corporation with a strong territorial structure and a hierarchical line. It is the only other institution which on the national level is comparable to the Sandinista Front, which also is a hierarchical institution with a strong territorial structure, as no other political party has,” explained the political scientist. “The regime wants a Catholic Church with postures similar to the Evangelical Churches, which restricts themselves to their religious activities. For now this is what is left clear and that is why they want to subdue it, “ stated Alcázar.
Cuba and Venezuela: different scenarios for the Catholic Church
62.5% of the world´s inhabitants, nearly 4.9 billion people, live in countries where religious liberty is violated, with Nicaragua among those affected by greater violations of this right, according to a report from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN from its acronym in Spanish).
The data from this analysis, which has been published since 1999, indicates that 61 of the 195 countries of the world violate religious liberty. The situation has gotten worse in 47 States since 2021 and has only improved in nine. In 28 of them (including Nicaragua) there is religious persecution, and discrimination because of beliefs affects another 33 (Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti among them).
In Nicaragua persecution has increased due to an “authoritarian” Government, the same reason for the increase in discrimination in Venezuela and Cuba, according to the study “Report on Religious Liberty in the World” from the international pontifical foundation ACN.
In spite of the fact that the Sandinista dictatorship shares political ideologies with Cuba and Venezuela, the situation of the leaders of the Catholic Church in those countries is very different from that of Nicaragua. DIVERGENTES talked with Jessica Domínguez, a Cuban journalist and editor of the digital media El Toque, and with Grisha Vera, Venezuelan journalist and member of the CONNECTAS platform, to understand the behavior of both regimes toward religious.
Domínguez explained that to the Cuban regime diplomacy matters a lot and the image of a democratic State which they are able to project to the world. In few words, they evaluate the cost-benefit of their political decisions on the Island.
“The Government of Cuba is not on the same level as Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. (The Sandinista dictatorship) lost all need to project the existence of a democratic space, this does not matter to them,” added the journalist.
In Cuba the relationship between the regime and the Church has not been linear. There have been high and low moments since the triumph of the Castro revolution until today. One of these high points was the demonstrations of July 2021. At that time the Cuban Episcopal Conference (CONCUR) carried out actions to accompany the political prisoners and their families. The solidarity of the priests conditioned the expulsion of the Jesuit David Pantaleón Rosario, the president of the Conference.
“In turn, a nucleus of priests concentrated principally in the Archdiocese of Habana and Camagüey have accompanied the principal civic events of the country through critical homilies, public letters, or support for repressed individuals. The actions have resulted in repressive measures against the priests, which include acts of political harassment, defamation and interrogations led by State Security and the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Communist Party,” he explained in a publication in the digital media El Toque,which reports on events which happen in Cuba.
Domínguez pointed out that the current state of the relationship between the Church and the Cuban State is ambiguous. Even though the ecclesial sector has gained strength, there are actors within its nucleus with whom the regime has an open dialogue and others with whom it does not because they are more averse.
About whether there are detentions or not of bishops or priests in Cuba as has happened in Nicaragua, the journalist said that there are no prisoners for exercising religious activities, at least not of prominent figures. Nevertheless, she indicated that this is going to depend on the actor.
“The Castro regime has more respect for a bishop of the Catholic Church than toward a pastor of a protestant religion who is in the center of the country,” stated the journalist, who added that the repression against religious has not been like it is in Nicaragua because of the importance which Cuba places on diplomacy.
“Cuba needs to dialogue with external actors, with the United States. It is interested in maintaining the image of the democratic State which progresses. They are not yet into the radicalization of repression, we do not have that scenario,” she added.
The case of Venezuela is different from the Cuban and Nicaraguan cases. The journalist Grisha Vera explained that even though the Catholic hierarchy always has stood apart from Chavism with a pretty critical position, the Maduro regime up to now has used a stigmatizing discourse against religious leaders.
“But this comes from Chávez. He always insulted them, he called them devils in cassocks,” Vera said, who does not remember in Venezuela an attack like the one the Ortega-Murillo regime has had against bishops and priests in Nicaragua.
“The Maduro regime attacks and backs off, this has been lately its relationship with the press, NGOs and the Catholic Church. In the face of the critical posture the Government responds with stigmatization, they have told them that in order to do politics they should take off their cassocks, or phrases like “don´t get involved in what is not your function.” But nothing compared to Nicaragua. They have not been as aggressive as Ortega”, stated the Venezuelan journalist.
Vera said that Maduro lessened the state repression because he wanted to clean up his image and have the support of some governments of the region, like that of the Brazilian president Lula da Silva, who last week said that authoritarianism was just a narrative.
The Venezuelan journalist did not question the fact that the regime, if it wanted to, could imprison a priest or a cardinal. Nevertheless, it does not do so because that would go against the strategy of cleaning up the image of Maduro in a context in which he is preparing for some disputed elections next year.
“In Venezuela there are tensions between the regime and the Church, but never like in Nicaragua. Chavism now calculates the damage from their actions and the political costs,” indicated Vera.