By CHRISTOPHER MANION
For several weeks, Nicaragua’s Communist government has mounted an attack on Matagalpa Bishop Rolando Alvarez, accusing him of “organizing violent groups” and inciting them “to carry out acts of hate against the population.” On August 19, Sandinista police entered the episcopal compound and kidnapped Bishop Alvarez and jailed several of his priests.
“It’s a steadily worsening situation,” reports Inés San Martín, “that has seen priests thrown in prison, religious processions canceled by the government, and Catholics forbidden to enter their own churches. Police have also forcibly entered and raided parishes, prevented parishioners from receiving the Eucharist inside the church and besieged other priests in their churches.”
The flagrant seizing of Bishop Alvarez is the latest in a series of Communist attacks on the Nicaraguan Church that have gone on for years — including efforts to radicalize the Church itself.
As part of those efforts, the original Sandinista Junta that took power in 1979 included two priests who were prominent Liberation Theologians. Maryknoll Fr. Miguel D’Escoto served as Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 1979 until 1990, and Fr. Ernesto Cardenal served as Nicaragua’s Minister of Culture from 1979 to 1987.
While Nicaraguan President and Communist Daniel Ortega attempted to use both D’Escoto and Cardenal as symbols of the harmony of Catholicism and Communism, his effort failed.
In fact, on his visit to Nicaragua in 1983, Pope John Paul II publicly condemned the “People’s Church” and told Nicaraguan Catholics to obey their bishops. He directly criticized the Communist Government for its repression as well (the country’s security forces were run by East German Stasi operatives at the time).
Pope John Paul also criticized both D’Escoto and Cardenal for their political activity. In February 1984, he suspended them a divinis for their disobedience of Canon Law. Thirty years later, in a public affirmation of their adherence to Liberation Theology, Pope Francis — a Peronista who grew up in a culture suffused in the ideology — restored them both to public ministry.
But isn’t Liberation Theology simply Marxism with a Catholic façade? For the answer, consider Ernesto Cardenal, a long-winded poet who was not so clever at disguise and disinformation. As my beloved mentor Michael Novak reported at the time, “Cardenal said after his first red-carpet visit to Cuba [that] ‘It was like a second conversion. Before then, I saw myself as a revolutionary, but I had confused ideas. I was trying to find a third way, which was the Revolution of the Gospel, but then I saw that Cuba was the Gospel put into practice. And only when I converted to Marxism could I write religious poetry’.”
How many of our current clerics, North and South, have experienced the same conversion?
Over the years, Ortega has attempted to name popular orthodox Catholic priests “Heroes of the Revolution,” hijacking them as symbolic fodder for Communism, a classic Leninist tactic. One such missionary whom I know had to flee the country when he refused the “honor.”
But in classic Leninist fashion, Ortega has recognized many Catholic leaders as “incorrigibles,” and attacked them mercilessly.
One of those heroes was Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, who served as archbishop of Managua from 1970 to 2005. He tenaciously defended the faith and the Nicaraguan people, and suffered constant harassment from the Communists as a result.
Some 30 years ago I asked him if we could put all of his records safely at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where expert archivists could catalogue and index them.
The Cardinal turned to his secretary and said, “I have to sleep in a different house every night because they’re trying to kill me, and he wants me to write a book!”
Fearful And Furtive
Given this background, what have Bishop Alvarez’s brother bishops in the United States done in response to his arrest and detention?
We know that many American bishops welcomed the victory of Ortega’s Sandinista revolution on July 19, 1979. Since then, our bishops have been reluctant to criticize the Nicaraguan government with the vigor that Pope John Paul displayed in 1983. The August 19 statement by Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on International Justice and Peace, admirably reflects the tenor of the Conference’s views over the years:
“Today, I express our continued steadfast solidarity with our brothers in the Nicaraguan episcopate, along with their priests and foreign missionaries, in their calling to freely proclaim the Gospel and live the faith. The faith of the Nicaraguan people, who stand in solidarity with their bishops and priests, is an inspiration for us all.”
Yesterday, today, and forever, it seems, our bishops are reluctant to criticize Communism or a Communist regime. Some might fear that their criticism will only cause more repression of Nicaragua’s Catholic faithful. And there’s no doubt that the faithful there are indeed constant targets of violent assaults.
But is that the only reason? Or are they doing do so in adherence to the spirit of Pope Francis, who saves his harshest criticism for the United States?
That’s understandable, sort of. But even when the Communist Government of Nicaragua raids a chancery and kidnaps a Catholic bishop in the middle of the night, for some reason they can’t criticize it.
Nonetheless, many of our shepherds have fearlessly criticized Donald Trump, the most pro-life President in American history, early and often. What is it that prevents them from criticizing Communists who kidnap their brother bishops, jail their brother priests, and ravage, harass, and brutally attack faithful Nicaraguan Catholics?
They are much more willing to criticize pro-life American officials who advocate the rule of law than they are CNN’s favorite “very devout Catholic,” Joe Biden. They can’t even criticize the criminal coyotes who are trafficking in children, drugs, guns, laundered money — oh yes, and illegal aliens.
When Bianca Jagger can accuse Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, of “declaring war on the Church,” why can’t America’s bishops?
What’s their problem?
Leftovers
Some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) pretend that the government funding they lobby for befits their title as “charities.” But the Democrat authorization for 87,000 new, armed agents of the Internal Revenue Service should bring home the sad fact that the money doesn’t reflect the “charity” of the taxpayer.
Now we know: it isn’t charity when the IRS takes it, literally with a gun to your head. As a Theological Virtue, charity is voluntary.
The late Antonin Scalia put it well: “The transformation of charity into legal entitlement has produced donors without love and recipients without gratitude.”
Apparently only Protestant churches fought the lockdown rules imposed by Blue State governors. It looks like they were right. California’s 6th District Court of Appeal has ruled in favor of Calvary Chapel in San Jose, where Gov. Gavin Newson had banned indoor worship services two years ago.
America’s Catholic bishops enforced lockdown measures pretty unanimously, some of them forcefully. Our churches were empty, but they were at least successful in collecting several billion dollars in federal PPA (Paycheck Protection Program) loans which were later forgiven. In fact, church-related entities were among the highest beneficiaries of the program nationwide.
Catholic Vote reports that, since the Black Lives Matter riots began on May 28, 2020, “there have been at least 207 attacks against Catholic churches in the United States, including arson attacks which damaged or destroyed historic churches; spray-painting and graffiti of satanic messages; rocks and bricks thrown through windows; and statues destroyed (often with heads cut off). A new spate of at least 70 attacks has occurred since the draft Supreme Court opinion proposing to reverse Roe v. Wade was leaked in early May 2022, with many including graffiti with pro-abortion messages.”
If any of these attacks have occurred in your diocese, please ask your bishop to join with his colleagues and raise Hell about the lack of response by Catholic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.
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