This is an analysis of the reason why the Nicaraguan Bishops Conference and therefore the Pope have not spoken out denouncing the Government’s treatment of the Bishop of Matagalpa, now 12 days under house arrest, and the harassment of other clerics of the Catholic Church. In part this lack of response by the Church authorities led Nicaraguan Catholics in exile to issue a letter calling on the Pope to clearly denounce these actions. The letter provides a good summary of the Church-State relations.
In La Prensa, August 11, 2022
Analysts explain why Pope Francis has remained silent in the face of the oppression of the regime of Daniel Ortega against the Catholic Church and its religious leaders and the position of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference.
The eyes of the Catholic world are observing the situation that the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa is experiencing, Mons. Rolando Álvarez, who this Wednesday has spent seven days under police house arrest in the Episcopal offices of this city, surrounded by the Police of the regime of Daniel Ortega.
Nevertheless, Pope Francis up to yesterday had not made a statement about these events and specialists of ecclesiastical affairs believe that he will not make one, while they warned about the complicated immediate future that it bears also for the high official of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN).
The Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Conference (CELAM), the Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica, and Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez, the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, are some of the religious actors who have expressed their solidarity with the Catholic Church of Nicaragua and with the bishop of Matagalpa.
In particular, the bishops of Guatemala signed a press release where they expressed their solidarity, support, and closeness to the Catholic Church of Nicaragua and even more with Mons. Álvarez, graduate of the National Major Seminary of the Assumption in Guatemala.
The Guatemala prelates highlighted the importance of “freedom of expression” as a fundamental right.
“Silence does not contribute anything nor does it offer a solution”
A former diplomat who spoke with La Prensa under conditions of anonymity, said that “Vatican diplomacy is very cautious and always looks to maintain the best relations with those in power”, but pointed out that the silence of Pope Francis is more and more noteworthy every day because of the contrast with pronouncements from Episcopal Conferences in Latin America.
“These voices who have been raised are doing nothing more than highlighting the silence which Pope Francis has decided to maintain so far. Some explain that it is a matter of not breaking communications, of providing bridges to seek solutions through dialogue. The truth is that simple silence does not contribute anything and represents no solution. Silence in the current circumstances is darkness, and nothing positive can come out of darkness,” said the source.
“Dialogue and cohabitation”
The sociologist and former diplomat, Óscar René Vargas said that everything indicates that the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN), led by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, will be committed to “dialogue and cohabitation”, in other words, they will reach an agreement and will keep their diplomatic relations intact.
An agreement which would not benefit Mons. Rolando Álvarez at all.
“The prevailing logic of the CEN and the Vatican is to not confront the Government; they are betting on “cohabitation.” Based on the position of the CEN, the Vatican is betting on dialogue. Proof is the fact that the press releases of the different Latin American Episcopal Conferences are more forceful than the press release of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua. The Vatican is not going to make a pronouncement different from the CEN, just the opposite, they will follow the guidelines of the CEN: dialogue and cohabitation,” expressed Vargas.
The sociologist even said that the Vatican, which is a State with which Nicaragua has a diplomatic relationship, “will maintain its relations with the dictatorship,” because “there is no element which might question that decision.”
Considering this context, Vargas predicted that Mons. Álvarez will have to cede or quit resisting, because alone he will not be able to confront the offensive from the Ortega regime.
They warn that “the resistance from Álvarez will be beaten down”
“The case of bishop Álvarez has demonstrated that the other bishops are not accompanying him. Not even the president of the CEN, the bishop of Jinotega, which is 23 kilometers from Matagalpa, has visited him nor taken him food so that he might resist for more time. The resistance of Álvarez will be beaten to the extent that his isolation, because of the police forces, continue to prevent him from being supplied with food and water,” predicted Vargas.
Another element which for the sociologist indicates that the CEN is in favor of dialogue and cohabitation is the silence that they have maintained in the recent cases of the trials of the priests of Nandaime and Boaco, Fr. Manuel Salvador and Fr. José Urbina Rodríguez, and in the case of the priest of Sébaco, Uriel Vallejos, who was also under siege by the Ortega police this past August 1.
For Vargas, the solution to the crisis in the Diocese of Matagalpa will be similar to what happened with the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, who had to leave the country, otherwise the religious will be exposed to being jailed as has happened with other religious in whose cases the regime has fabricated charges of crimes.
“Decentralization” of the Catholic Church
The lawyer and Catholic, Martha Patricia Molina, explained that religious entities do not act nor respond in the same way that civil entities do, so cannot be expected to do so.
“We want to see Pope Francis act different from how he is acting now, and that is why we criticize the `Papal silence´, but the Vatican is very respectful of local bodies and in the Gaudium et Spes [Vatican II document on Church in the Modern World], number 16 it established that it is not helpful that the Pope take the place of the local episcopates in the discernment of all the problematic situations that are faced in their territories.´ In that sense, I see the need to move toward a healthy decentralization,” said Molina.
The lawyer insisted in the fact that the Pope delegates functions to the bishops, and it is the CEN that has the spiritual and moral obligation to pronounce themselves as evidently they have already done.
The attacks against the Catholic Church and its leaders started with greater intensity in 2018, in the context of the repression against the civil protests. Most of the priests and bishops supported the protestors who originally had come out to the streets to reject a reform of Social Security, but later different complaints were added, among them the continuation of Ortega and his wife Murillo in power, who had already spent 15 years in the Executive Branch.
This Wednesday, some 55 organizations of civil society released a letter sent to Pope Francis to argue in favor of the life and freedom of Mons. Álvarez, while at the same time they denounced “the persecution and hate of the regime against the Catholic Church” without any justification.
Unofficial sources have reported that Álvarez is being pressured by the dictatorship to turn himself in to the Ortega Police, supposedly to be expelled from Nicaragua, a request that the high official of the Catholic Church has refused to fulfill, by responding that he will not leave his country.