Saints also go to jail in Nicaragua

In Nicaragua, among so many political prisoners, there are now two saints whose prison is the churches where they are venerated.

These are San Miguel Arcángel and San Jerónimo, whose festivities are celebrated in Masaya on neighboring dates, on September 29 and 30.

San Miguel goes out in procession on his day, and after the triumphal journey through the streets he does not return to his temple, but spends the night in the church next to him, Saint Jerome, to accompany him the next morning in his own procession.

Saint Jerome is the patron saint of the city.

The popular devotion of centuries has transformed him from a doctor of the Church into a doctor of medicine, and he is so famous for curing the sick that he is cheered with cries of “Long live Dr. Saint Jerome, who heals without medicine!”

The police have cordoned off both temples with riot troops and closed the streets, after notifying the parish priests that the saints were prohibited from leaving their churches.

The fear is that the processions, which are massive displays of religious fervor, with ancient cultural roots, could become demonstrations of popular rejection, especially in Masaya, recognized for its combative tradition.

The first insurrection against the Somoza dictatorship broke out in the indigenous neighborhood of Monimbó in 1978, and the indomitable resistance of its inhabitants was key to the triumph of the revolution the following year;

and the barricades were raised again against the new dictatorship in 2018, giving rise to the unusual fact that the rebels, with nothing more than pyrotechnic firecrackers, kept the police locked up in their barracks, until Ortega decided to order the "clean-up operation" by paramilitaries.

San Miguel and San Jerónimo were political prisoners, as was the Bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez.

After remaining under police siege in the episcopal curia of his diocese, finally assaulted, he was kidnapped and taken to Managua, where he was held prisoner in the homes of relatives.

Meanwhile, three priests, a deacon and two seminarians who were with him, more than a month after being arrested, will now be tried for terrorism and incitement to hatred.

And dozens of other clerics have fled clandestinely into exile, with which their parishes, beheaded, will end up being closed.

There are two icons of the resistance against the dictatorship that have permeated the popular consciousness: Monsignor Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Nicaragua, forced into exile in Miami, after the Pope called him to Rome under the pretext that he would hold a position in the Roman Curia;

and Monsignor Álvarez, who was never afraid to confront the repressive forces in the streets, nor did he stop crying out from the pulpit against oppression.

I brought both together to compose the character of Monsignor Bienvenido Ortez in my novel

, who ends up in exile, abandoned by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and deceived by Vatican diplomacy.

The unrestrained persecution leaves no loopholes.

Universities, professional associations, civil organizations, media.

Along with the priests, the journalists who dare to truly exercise their profession are either imprisoned or go into exile.

Only the one who is silent or the one who consents is safe.

And the fury against the bishops and priests who do not keep quiet is as remarkable as the sepulchral silence of the episcopal conference of Nicaragua.

And all this about prohibiting the saints from going out on the streets, leaving them locked up in their churches, tempts me to remember other extravagant characters from Latin America, such as the governor of Tabasco, Tomás Garrido Canabal.

In the year 1925 he looted and closed the churches, he had the images burned, he ordered the removal of the crosses from the tombs in the cemeteries;

he substituted religious festivals for agricultural fairs, ordered to change the names of saints of the towns by names of revolutionary heroes;

he prohibited the word “goodbye” to greet each other, and ordered that “salud” be used instead.

On his farm he baptized a donkey as

a bull as

a cow as

and a pig as

And he created Los Camisas Rojas, a private militia dedicated to ensuring that his measures were carried out.

"The fiercest religious persecution known in any country since the time of Queen Elizabeth," says novelist Graham Greene, who had Garrido Canabal in mind when he wrote

.

In 1926, General Plutarco Elías Calles, institutionalized leader of the Mexican revolution, had enacted a law that empowered the Government to close churches, Catholic schools and convents, expel foreign priests.

It was what gave Garrido Canabal a free hand to imagine, and unleash, his campaign of repression.

And he also ended up provoking the Cristeros War in 1927, when the peasants rose up shouting “Long live Christ the King!” under the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Meanwhile, Saint Michael and Saint Jerome remain confined to their churches behind closed doors and visits are prohibited, let alone being carried on a litter through the streets.

The list of charges being prepared against them will be the same as for other political prisoners: subversion of public order and terrorism.

Sergio Ramírez

is a writer and Cervantes Prize winner. 

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