2 de noviembre 2022
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Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes affirmed this Monday, October 31 at the Vatican, that we must maintain dialogue with the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua, despite the fact that it maintains a repressive escalation against the Catholic Church and has imprisoned a bishop, eight priests, and two seminarians.
“We must always pursue dialogue. A dialogue begins but we do not know when it will end, we must go ahead, and always promote it. The Pope always gives us this indication: dialogue cannot end”, said Cardinal Brenes after participating in the presentation of a document of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM).
Brenes was also welcomed this Monday, October 31, by Pope Francis, and explained that the supreme pontiff “knows the situation well and is always informed” and that Pope Francis told him to “go ahead with preaching and with the guidance of our people.”
The Cardinal expressed his concern for what he describes as the problem of migration. “It is a great concern for us and also for the Holy Father. Migration is a very great pain because the family is abandoned, and there are serious risks of going, for example, to the United States, passing through Honduras, Guatemala... It is really difficult".
Not afraid, says Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes
Despite having suffered aggressions in the past, Brenes assured that he is not afraid to return to Nicaragua. “I am not afraid. I go around the parishes, I drive a car, if I stop at a traffic light I talk to whoever I meet,” he added.
He admitted that he is worried, but added: “I have to be the first to show hope and trust in God”.
Last March 6, the Ortega regime expelled the apostolic nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag from the country, and also expelled from the national territory 18 missionaries of Charity, a congregation founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Then, the regime proceeded with the house arrest of the bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Alvarez.
Likewise, the regime's justice system will place in the dock, on December 1, four Catholic priests, two seminarians, and a cameraman of the Diocese of Matagalpa, to answer for the alleged crimes of conspiracy to commit undermining the national integrity and propagation of false news to the detriment of the State and the Nicaraguan society.
The Ortega regime has also closed down a dozen radio and television stations belonging to the Catholic Church and in less than four years the Nicaraguan Catholic Church has been the target of 190 attacks.
Dialogue without response
On September 15, Pope Francis revealed that “there is a dialogue with Nicaragua” and that the Vatican has spoken with the Ortega government about the escalating repression suffered by the Church and the human rights crisis in this country. The regime, however, has not publicly pronounced itself on the subject and has continued its attacks against religious leaders.
“In Nicaragua the news is clear, there is dialogue, there have been talks with the government. There is dialogue, but this does not mean that everything the government does is approved or disapproved,” the pontiff said during a press conference aboard the papal plane on his return to Rome after his trip to Kazakhstan.
The Pope assured that “there are problems and they have to be solved” and wished that the Missionaries of Charity could return to the country.
“There are things that are not understood, that are not assimilated, but we must never stop the dialogue,” added the Pope, after describing the expulsion from Nicaragua of Nuncio Sommertag as “incomprehensible”, and added that he is “a good man who has now been appointed in another country”.
This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff.
