03/01/2020 - 20:07
- Clarín.com
- World
February 2019. Ernesto Cardenal - who died this Sunday at age 95 - is very ill in a hospital in Managua, he had been admitted on Monday 4 due to a kidney infection. He is 94 years old and comes from suffering - along with the diseases of that old age - the persecution and insults of the Ortega regime. The first gesture comes from Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Managua, who has also been denouncing the Ortega regime. “I visited my friend priest, Father Ernesto Cardenal, in the hospital, with whom I could talk for a few minutes. After praying for him, I knelt on his bed and asked for his blessing as a priest of the Catholic Church, to which he agreed joyfully. Thank you, Ernesto! ” Báez wrote.
It was a symbol of reconciliation, since Cardinal was distanced from the “official” Nicaraguan Church since its time of Sandinista militancy. And a few days later, the greatest consolation would come: the rehabilitation granted by Pope Francis. On February 16, 2018, the lifting of the suspension of divinis (prohibition of administering the sacraments) announced that Pope John Paul II had imposed on him 35 years earlier was announced.
The image of the penalty to Cardinal was one of the toughest of his time. John Paul II had visited Nicaragua as part of his tour of Mexico and Central America, in March 1983. But in Nicaragua - after the triumphant revolution that overthrew the tyranny of Somoza, in 1979 - he ruled the Sandinismo , still unified and seen with the sympathy of progressive currents throughout the world. At that time, Daniel Ortega as president enjoyed prestige and the priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal was his Minister of Culture, contributing even more to the epic of that management.
In 2019 Pope Francis lifted the “suspension of divinis” to the priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal
John Paul II, a strong anti-communist (for his feelings brought from his native Poland), arrived angrily in Managua. There a poster received it like this: "Welcome to free Nicaragua thanks to God and the revolution." The Sandinista masses shouted "between Christianity and revolution / there is no contradiction." Ortega arengaba. But John Paul II could not accept that pressure.
At one point, Cardinal knelt at the step of the Pope. He asked her hand to kiss her. John Paul II withdrew it and, at the request of blessing, John Paul II made a gesture with his right hand: "Before you have to reconcile with the Church," he said.
A year later, he imposed the harsh sanction, which prevented Cardinal from exercising his faith in an "official" manner. While that papacy was extended, Cardinal had no opportunity to "return", nor to have the doors of the Vatican opened, closed for him and for the other referents of liberation theology. Karol Wojtyla died in 2005 and his successor, Benedict XVI ( Joseph Ratzinger ), did not change the condition of Cardinal, who could only feel priest in his privacy. But also dragging the fragmentation and extinction of Sandinista ideals. It was in that period that, again, poetry and some craft exercises mitigated his pain.
The change in the dome of the Church, with the election of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope in March 2013, totally modified the situation. Cardinal felt identified with the first messages of Pope Francis, especially in his allusion to the humblest, including ecology. He sent him a book, with dedication. In an interview, Cardinal said: “I feel identified with this new Pope. It's better than we could have dreamed it. ”
Cardinal's rehabilitation was woven with the secrecy with which the Vatican handles its sensitive issues. Stanislaw Sommertag, the apostolic nuncio in Nicaragua, visited Cardinal at his home and anticipated that forgiveness was likely. He even offered to celebrate his first mass together, although the health status of the Nicaraguan bishop prevented him. The subsequent visit of Báez and the official announcement from the Vatican, finally sealed the return that Cardinal had dreamed, since that time unfortunate with Karol Wojtyla.
