Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega orders the rupture of diplomatic relations with the Vatican

The dictator of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, orders the rupture of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, the highest institution of the Catholic Church in the world. The decision was made a few hours after an interview with infobae in which Pope Francis described the government of Nicaragua as a “Hitler dictatorship”, whose supreme leader, Daniel Ortega, commented – “with great respect” – that he suffered from “an imbalance”.

This was confirmed to the media by diplomatic sources in Rome Reserved of Nicaragua and the representative of the Sandinista government to the Holy See “verbally” communicated the breakdown of relations to the Vatican Secretariat of State, in Rome, alluding to the declarations of the Holy Father, in which for the first time he forcefully referred to the regime’s attacks against the Catholic Church.

The pope also praised the detained bishop Rolando José Álvarez: “AThere we have a bishop in prison, a very serious, very capable man. He wanted to give his testimony and did not accept exile.

The representative of the regime is Yara Suhyén Pérez Calero, who is minister adviser to the Holy See. Nicaragua has not had an ambassador to the Apostolic See since 21 September 2021when Ortega rescinded the appointment of Elliette Ortega Sotomayor, who in March of that year replaced former Deputy Director of the National Police, former Commissioner Francisco Bautista Lara.

This way, Ortega and Murillo will end a diplomatic relationship of at least 115 yearssince 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 by friction and mistrust over the past 43 years.

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

According to the diplomatic source in Rome, sita Reserved“the representative of the Nunciature in Managua was given one week to leave the country”.

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

Similarly to Diouf, the regime of Ortega y Murillo verbally notified the apostolic nuncio of his expulsion from Nicaragua. On Saturday 5 March 2022, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arlette Marenco, communicated to the papal representative that she had ten tens to leave the country.

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

With the expulsion of the nuncio in 2022, a period of hostility, persecution and harassment against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has intensified. The Government —through its repressive machine, led by the State Police— shut down Catholic radio stations, desecrated churches, expelled nuns from the order of the Missionaries of Charitythey forbade processions, imprisoned and condemned a bishop, banished and declared eight priests “stateless”.

Also Ortega he called the bishops “terrorists” and “coup plotters” Nicaragua, which he also accused —without proof— of being accomplices of internal forces and international groups who, in his opinion, “are acting in Nicaragua to overthrow him”.

The case to which Pope Francis refers is that of Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Estelí, locked up in a maximum security cell in the prison system of La Modelo, in Managua, and illegally sentenced to 26 years and four months’ imprisonment for alleged crimes considered “treason”, after refusing exile.

The monsignor refused to board a plane that would take him, along with 222 other freed Nicaraguan political prisoners, all oppositionists, to the United States, which angered Ortega, who called him “arrogant”, “crazy” and ” energetic”.

Despite the regime’s incessant attacks on the Church and on priests, the Supreme Pontiff has constantly called for dialogue. “The Holy See never leaves. They chase her away. Always try to save diplomatic relations and to save what can be saved with patience and dialogue», the pope said last December in an interview with the Spanish newspaper ABC.