Following the bishops of Honduras the previous week and ahead of those of Panama the week after, the bishops of Nicaragua will make their ad limina visit beginning October 12, with an audience scheduled with Pope Leo XIV likely on Friday morning. Behind this institutional appointment lies a central question: How do you keep a Church alive when political power seeks to control its public expression? To understand this crisis, one must go back to the Sandinista revolution of 1979. Having overthrown the Somoza dictatorship, Daniel Ortega’s government maintained a conflictual relationship with part of the Catholic hierarchy. In the context of the Cold War, the government aligned itself with the Eastern Bloc, in the manner of Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba. The local Church split between those defending its institutional autonomy and Christians committed to the revolutionary project. John Paul II’s visit on March 4, 1983, stands as the strangest and most difficult episode Read More…

Bishops of suffering Nicaragua will visit Rome this week