Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega ordered the severance of diplomatic relations with the Vatican

The Nicaraguan dictator, Daniel Ortega,

, the highest institution of the Catholic Church in the world.

The decision was made a few hours after an interview with

was published in which Pope Francis described the Government of Nicaragua as a "Hitlerian dictatorship", whose top leader, Daniel Ortega, commented - "with great respect" - that he suffers " an imbalance”.

outlet

that the representative of the Sandinista government before the Holy See

in Rome, alluding to the statements of the Holy Father, in the which for the first time referred forcefully to the regime's attacks against the Catholic Church.

The Pope also praised the imprisoned Bishop Rolando José Álvarez: “There

He wanted to give his testimony and did not accept exile ”.

The representative of the regime is Yara Suhyén Pérez Calero, who is Minister Counselor in the Holy See.

Nicaragua

, when Ortega canceled the appointment of Elliette Ortega Sotomayor, who replaced the former deputy director of the National Police, former commissioner Francisco Bautista Lara, in March of that year.

A mural of Pope Francis, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, March 2, 2023. AP Photo

In this way,

, since the relations between Nicaragua and the Holy See were born in 1908. However, the coexistence between the Sandinistas and the Catholic Church of Nicaragua has been marked due to friction and mistrust in the last 43 years.

Nicaragua will also enter a small group of thirteen countries that do not maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See, four of them have communist governments —Vietnam, North Korea, China and Laos— and eight are Muslims —Somalia, Oman, Mauritania, Maldives, Comoro Islands, Brunei, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia—the other is Bhutan, a Buddhist kingdom in South Asia.

According to the diplomatic source in Rome, site

, "the representative of the Nunciature in Managua was given a week to leave the country."

Monsignor Mbaye Diouf, secretary of the Nunciature, has been in charge of the Vatican diplomatic mission -as charge d'affaires- since the beginning of March last year, after the dictatorship de facto expelled the apostolic nuncio, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag.

Similar to Diouf, the Ortega y Murillo regime verbally notified the apostolic nuncio of its expulsion from Nicaragua.

On Saturday, March 5, 2022, the vice minister of foreign affairs, Arlette Marenco, notified the papal representative that she had ten ten days to leave the country.

However, after consultations with the Holy See, Monsignor Sommertag left his diplomatic mission the following day at night —Sunday, March 6—, without saying goodbye to the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN) or the accredited diplomatic corps in the country.

With the expulsion of the nuncio in 2022, a period of hostility, persecution and harassment against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua intensified.

The Government —through its repressive machinery, headed by the National Police—

, prohibited processions, imprisoned and sentenced a bishop, exiled and declared “stateless”. eight priests.

Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Managua.

AFP photo

In addition, Ortega

Nicaraguan bishops “terrorists” and “coup plotters”, whom he has also accused —without evidence— of being accomplices of internal forces and international groups that, in his opinion, “act in Nicaragua to overthrow him.”

The case Pope Francis referred to is that of Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, who is confined to a maximum security cell in the La Modelo penitentiary system, in Managua, and was illegally sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison for alleged crimes considered "treason", after he refused to be exiled.

The Monsignor refused to get on a plane that would take him, along with 222 other released Nicaraguan political prisoners, all opponents, to the United States, which provoked the fury of Ortega, who labeled him "arrogant", "insane" and "energúmeno".

Despite the regime's incessant attacks against the Church and priests, the Supreme Pontiff has constantly called for dialogue.

He always tries to save diplomatic relations and save what can be saved with patience and dialogue," the pope said last December in an interview with the Spanish newspaper ABC.

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look too

Pope Francis charges against the "rude dictatorship" of Nicaragua

Political crisis in Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega targeted the businessmen and closed the main chamber that brought them together