By Alberto Miranda in DIVERGENTES, June 6, 2023
Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the highest figure of the Church in Nicaragua, has a timorous attitude in the face of the crusade of Ortega-Murillo against Catholicism. The prelate is not saying anything about the “investigation into asset laundering”, the harassment in the churches and the exile of dozens of priests. In contrast, he offered a mass in memory of Miguel Obando y Bravo which was promoted by Rosario Murillo. Experts warn that the regime is seeking to create “cracks in the structures” of Catholicism.
The timorous posture of Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes in the face of the religious persecution which the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo maintain against Catholicism is creating “disgust” within the clergy. DIVERGENTES consulted with several sources of the Catholic Church, including several priests, and all agreed that “the tactics” of the silence of the prelate “show that he is allowing his arm to be twisted by the dictatorship.”
“At times we perceive that there is fear, panic and terror…but also, many times, we perceive another type of fear: breaking with the comforts to which the Cardinal is accustomed,” said a priest close to the Episcopal Conference. “Imagine that he is a person who is able to leave the country and return without problems. That he sees what is happening as normal and still intervenes in other dioceses which are not his responsibility. In other words, there is a generalized sense of disappointment,” maintains the ecclesial source, who preferred to not go deeper into the details of the “intervention” blamed on Brenes.
During a eucharist this past May 27th, Cardinal Brenes called the faithful to ignore the different “publications in social media and exaggerated communications media,” when they reported last month about the worsening of the repression against the different dioceses of the country, like the arrest of priests Pastor Eugenio Rodríguez Benavides and Leonardo Guevara Gutiérrez.
After the blockage [of the bank accounts] of at least five of the nine dioceses in Nicaragua, the National Police accused the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN) of supposed money laundering. The repressive institution said it had found bags of money “with hundreds of thousands of dollars in different diocese of the country.” DIVERGENTES tried to obtain the version of the bishops about the accusations made by the police. Nevertheless, CEN did not respond to the request.
In terms of the silence of the other bishops, another ecclesial source maintains that the religious “have adapted to Brenes´posture,” in other words, the timid attitude which has always characterized the Cardinal. The only one who criticizes the religious persecution and cries out for the liberation of Bishop Rolando Álvarez is Bishop Silvio José Báez, exiled in Miami, and who was de facto separated from the CEN.
A pastor from the center of the country said that they do not understand the posture of Cardinal Brenes in the face of the religious persecution, but maintains that they work in their churches with a certain “degree of independence.” “We priests maintain an attitude of disagreement with the silence in the face of the abuses of the regime,” said the priest.
An advance copy of the fourth edition of the study “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?”, done by the researcher on religious issues, Martha Patricia Molina, reveals that the Ortega-Murillo regime has forced 41 religious to abandon the country. Among them the Nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, one bishop, 33 priests, three deacons and three seminarians. Also 36 sisters have been expelled for different circumstances, with the most common being not renewing their residencies.
“The Cardinal is surrendering to the dictatorship”
The suspicions about the posture of Cardinal Brenes increased this past June 3rd, when he celebrated a Eucharist in memory of Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who died as a faithful member of the Ortega-Murillo regime. In fact, the mass held in the Catholic University (UNICA) was promoted by Vice President Rosario Murillo in one of her daily allocutions, transmitted on national television by the official media.
Molina the researcher pointed out that the participation of Brenes in that mass “implies that the relationship between Church and State is in excellent condition,” when the Catholic grassroots are suffering harassment, persecution, jailing and exile. The crusade against Catholicism got worse after Pope Francis compared the Sandinista regime with a “Hitler-like dictatorship.” This past March the Foreign Ministry of Nicaragua decided “to suspend” diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
“Celebrating that championed Eucharist sends a message to society in general and the international community that the relationship is found to be on good terms, but we all know that the police are investigating the Church for asset laundering,” said Molina. “This is a game of the dictatorship: they use religious symbols to send that message. Really Cardinal Brenes could have celebrated that mass for the soul of Obando y Bravo in private. In other words, refuse to participate in that game. Nevertheless, he did not do that.”
“Catholics should be rational”
DIVERGENTES spoke with the Uruguayan priest Fabián Rovere, who closely follows the religious persecution in Nicaragua. The priest did not discard the probability that Cardinal Brenes could be under “pressure” by Ortega and Murillo.
“Beyond the attitude of the Cardinal, we cannot put ourselves in his shoes, but we can seek unity in the face of this difficulty which the Nicaraguan Church is experiencing,” recommended Rovere to the faithful. “The worst thing that can happen, and maybe that is the strategy of the regime, is to divide. Obviously there is a strategy to make public a Eucharist presided over ty the Catholic leader in memory of another Cardinal, and the person who does the inviting is one of the people who has most persecuted the Church. It is a clear strategy of division,” he analyzed.
The Uruguayan priest said that, in the face of the religious persecution, the Catholic people of Nicaragua must be very rational and careful in the face of the “game” the regime is carrying out. “The objective is to create a crack in the Church and destroy it from within with tactics that instill confusion between the clergy and the faithful,” warned Rovere.