EXPLANATION: Tension between Nicaragua and the Catholic Church

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Earlier this month, Nicaragua shut down seven radio stations belonging to the Catholic Church and launched an investigation against the Bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, accusing him of inciting violent actors “to carry out acts of hate.” against the population”. ”

This is not the first time that President Daniel Ortega has moved aggressively to silence critics of his administration. In 2018, the government raided the headquarters of the newspaper Confidencial, directed by journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who is considered one of the most prominent critics of Ortega. Then, throughout 2021, authorities arrested seven potential presidential candidates for the November election of that year.

Here’s a look at the strained relationship between the church and the government amid a political standoff now in its fifth year, with no end in sight.

WHO IS DANIEL ORTEGA?

Ortega, 76, is a former guerrilla with the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front who helped topple dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979 and served as president for the first time since 1985 until he left office in 1990 after being voted out.

He lost three more elections after that before returning to power in 2007. He won a fourth consecutive term on the 2021 ballot, which is widely discredited as facing no real opposition.

Ortega’s opponents regularly compare him to Somoza for his authoritarian tendencies and also accuse him of dynastic ambitions. His wife, Rosario Murillo, is his powerful vice president.

Under Ortega, Nicaragua has cultivated strong ties with allies Cuba and Venezuela, two staunch enemies of the US government.

HOW DID THE RIOTS START?

A social security reform in 2018 triggered massive protests backed by businessmen, Catholic leaders and others. The government’s response was a crackdown by security forces and allied civilian militias in which at least 355 people were killed, some 2,000 injured and 1,600 jailed, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Political stability has never fully returned.

Months before last year’s vote, a poll found that support for five opposition candidates cast doubt on Ortega’s re-election. Within weeks, all five were arrested, along with two other potential candidates. Authorities accused them of responsibility for the 2018 unrest, saying it amounted to an allegedly Washington-backed “terrorist coup” attempt.

“Ortega decided to suppress any possibility of losing. … And that meant arresting everyone,” political analyst Oscar René Vargas told The Associated Press at the time.

WHAT ROLE HAS THE CHURCH PLAYED?

Nicaragua is predominantly Catholic, and the church was close to the Somozas from the 1930s to the 1970s, when it distanced itself from politics after many abuses were attributed to the dictatorship. The church initially supported the Sandinistas after Somoza’s ouster, but that relationship deteriorated over time due to ideological differences. Under Ortega, Catholic leaders have often backed the country’s conservative elite.

When protests first broke out, Ortega asked the church to serve as a mediator in peace talks, though they ultimately failed.

The Nicaraguan church has been remarkably sympathetic to the protesters and their cause. In April 2018, the Managua cathedral housed student protesters and was a place to collect food and money to support them.

Figures such as Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes and the Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, have spoken out in their rejection of the violence. Brenes described the demonstrations as justified and Báez rejected any political decision that harms the people. Báez left the country in 2019 at the request of the Vatican, a move that was deplored by the opposition and celebrated by the ruling Sandinistas.

Ortega has responded by accusing some bishops of being part of a plot to overthrow him and calling them “terrorists.”

In March, the papal nuncio in Managua, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, who mediated and lobbied for the release of imprisoned government opponents, was forced by the Ortega administration to leave the country in what the Vatican called a “ unjustified decision”.

WHAT ABOUT THE LATEST CHURCH-STATE CONFLICT?

The church’s radio stations were shut down by the government on August 1, and police investigating Álvarez, the bishop of Matagalpa, accused him of “organizing violent groups.”

Álvarez has called for a profound electoral reform to “effectively achieve the democratization of the country” and also demanded the release of some 190 people whom he considers political prisoners. Last month he fasted in protest of what he called the persecution against him.

Since August 3, authorities have confined Álvarez to the episcopal complex where he lives. After six days without making public statements, he reappeared this Thursday in a live broadcast on social networks at a mass, accompanied by six priests and four lay people who are also unable to leave the complex.

The Archdiocese of Managua has expressed its support for Álvarez. The conference of Latin American Catholic bishops denounced what it described as a “siege” against priests and bishops, the expulsion of members of religious communities and the “constant harassment” against the Nicaraguan people and church.

On Saturday, hundreds of Nicaraguans attended a mass under heavy police presence after the government banned a religious procession in Managua.

Church leaders announced a day earlier that the National Police had banned the planned procession of Our Lady of Fatima for “internal security” reasons. Instead, the church called on the faithful to come peacefully to the cathedral.

HAS THERE BEEN A RESPONSE FROM THE VATICAN?

For nearly two weeks, the Vatican was publicly silent about the Álvarez investigation. The silence drew criticism from some Latin American human rights activists and intellectuals.

On Friday, Monsignor Juan Antonio Cruz, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the Organization of American States, expressed concern about the situation and asked both parties to “seek ways of understanding.”

Cruz’s statements came during a special session of the OAS in which its Permanent Council approved a resolution condemning the Ortega government for “harassment” and “arbitrary restrictions imposed on religious organizations and critics of the government.”

Cruz said that the Holy See wishes to “collaborate with those who are committed to dialogue as an indispensable instrument of democracy and guarantor of a more humane and fraternal civilization.”

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Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield at the Vatican and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religious coverage is supported through AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.

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