Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Can the Vatican stop Nicaragua’s Catholic crackdown?
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Can the Vatican stop Nicaragua’s Catholic crackdown?
After serving nearly a year of his 26 year sentence for treason in a Nicaraguan jail, Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa was flown to Rome in January. The high profile bishop known as an outspoken critic of President Ortega’s Sandinista government has been under house arrest since August 2022. He was allowed to leave the country alongside his supporter Bishop Isidoro Mora and a group of priests and seminarians, after a request from the Vatican.
It’s the latest development in a relationship between Nicaragua and the Holy See that has grown increasingly tense. President Ortega has had a complicated relationship with Nicaragua’s Catholic clergy ever since he first came to power in the 1979 revolution. It was with the help of the Church that Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006, but as his rule became increasingly more authoritarian he steadily repressed any sort of opposition, including critical voices from within the clergy.
Mass peaceful protests over social security reforms in 2018 ramped up the repression from the Ortega government in the following years. Opposition leaders, journalists, and prominent leaders from within the R.C.Church were amongst those expelled or advised to leave the country and some like Bishop Álvarez were even imprisoned.
The situation has left the Catholic Church in a difficult position. There are no diplomatic ties now between Nicaragua and the Holy See and since the end of the Cold War it appears that the international community has found more pressing concerns. Nicaragua’s Catholic neighbours may have the country on their radars, but how willing they are in supporting the Pope over his concerns for Nicaragua’s Catholic population remains to be seen.
So, this week on The Inquiry we’re asking ‘Can the Vatican stop Nicaragua’s Catholic crackdown?
Contributors:
Brandon Van Dyck, Associate Director of the Princeton Initiative in Catholic Thought, The Aquinas Institute, New Jersey, USA
Bianca Jagger, President of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Executive Directors Leadership Council of Amnesty International, London
Andrea Gagliarducci, Vatican Analyst, EWTN /ACI Group, Rome, Italy
Ryan Berg, Director, Americas Programme, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, USA
Presenter: Tanya Beckett
Producer: Jill Collins
Researcher: Matt Toulson
Editor: Tara McDermott
Technical Producer: Cameron Ward
Broadcast Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Image Credit: Mireya Acierto\Getty
View all episodes
By BBC World Service
4.6
695695 ratings
After serving nearly a year of his 26 year sentence for treason in a Nicaraguan jail, Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa was flown to Rome in January. The high profile bishop known as an outspoken critic of President Ortega’s Sandinista government has been under house arrest since August 2022. He was allowed to leave the country alongside his supporter Bishop Isidoro Mora and a group of priests and seminarians, after a request from the Vatican.
It’s the latest development in a relationship between Nicaragua and the Holy See that has grown increasingly tense. President Ortega has had a complicated relationship with Nicaragua’s Catholic clergy ever since he first came to power in the 1979 revolution. It was with the help of the Church that Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006, but as his rule became increasingly more authoritarian he steadily repressed any sort of opposition, including critical voices from within the clergy.
Mass peaceful protests over social security reforms in 2018 ramped up the repression from the Ortega government in the following years. Opposition leaders, journalists, and prominent leaders from within the R.C.Church were amongst those expelled or advised to leave the country and some like Bishop Álvarez were even imprisoned.
The situation has left the Catholic Church in a difficult position. There are no diplomatic ties now between Nicaragua and the Holy See and since the end of the Cold War it appears that the international community has found more pressing concerns. Nicaragua’s Catholic neighbours may have the country on their radars, but how willing they are in supporting the Pope over his concerns for Nicaragua’s Catholic population remains to be seen.
So, this week on The Inquiry we’re asking ‘Can the Vatican stop Nicaragua’s Catholic crackdown?
Contributors:
Brandon Van Dyck, Associate Director of the Princeton Initiative in Catholic Thought, The Aquinas Institute, New Jersey, USA
Bianca Jagger, President of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Executive Directors Leadership Council of Amnesty International, London
Andrea Gagliarducci, Vatican Analyst, EWTN /ACI Group, Rome, Italy
Ryan Berg, Director, Americas Programme, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, USA
Presenter: Tanya Beckett
Producer: Jill Collins
Researcher: Matt Toulson
Editor: Tara McDermott
Technical Producer: Cameron Ward
Broadcast Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Image Credit: Mireya Acierto\Getty
More shows like The Inquiry
View all
Global News Podcast
7,913 Listeners
From Our Own Correspondent
376 Listeners
Business Daily
523 Listeners
More or Less
863 Listeners
Newshour
1,067 Listeners
World Business Report
296 Listeners
In Our Time
5,576 Listeners
The Documentary Podcast
1,808 Listeners
Witness History
977 Listeners
The History Hour
586 Listeners
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
2,113 Listeners
The Interview
357 Listeners
Discovery
965 Listeners
BBC Inside Science
410 Listeners
Science Weekly
429 Listeners
The Life Scientific
227 Listeners
The Audio Long Read
841 Listeners
Unexpected Elements
363 Listeners
The Briefing Room
75 Listeners
CrowdScience
471 Listeners
People Fixing the World
240 Listeners
Evil Genius with Russell Kane
346 Listeners
Have You Heard George's Podcast?
235 Listeners
Elis James and John Robins
326 Listeners
You're Dead to Me
3,245 Listeners
Sport's Strangest Crimes
73 Listeners
Uncanny
689 Listeners
Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley
528 Listeners
Believe in Magic
630 Listeners
The Global Story
394 Listeners
Miss Me?
239 Listeners
The History Podcast
54 Listeners
Rory Stewart: The Long History of...
80 Listeners
The History Bureau
96 Listeners