Nicaragua apparently breaks off relations with the Vatican

Nicaragua apparently breaks off diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The Vatican confirmed on Sunday corresponding reports of the investigative Nicaraguan portal “El Confidencial”. The representative of the Nicaraguan government is said to have delivered the decision orally. Nicaragua’s diplomatic representation in the Vatican and the nunciature in Nicaragua will be closed. The nuncio in Nicaragua was given a week to leave the country. There was initially no confirmation from the Nicaraguan side. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs only announced in a press release on Sunday evening that it was considering taking this step.

The move joins Nicaragua with a small group of communist, Muslim and Buddhist countries that have no diplomatic ties with the Vatican, including China and Saudi Arabia.

The severance of relations is seen as a reaction of the autocratic President Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice-President Rosário Murillo seen on statements made by Pope Francis. In an interview with the Argentine portal “Infobae”, the head of the church had for the first time made a clear statement on the situation in Nicaragua and on the attacks by the Ortega regime on the Catholic Church and its dignitaries. Pope Francis spoke, among other things, of a “Hitler dictatorship” in Nicaragua and praised the imprisoned Bishop Rolando José Álvarez. Álvarez has become a flaming adversary to Ortega within the Church. In February he was due to be flown to the United States along with 222 other released dissidents but refused to leave the country, after which Ortega called him “crazy”, sentenced to 26 years in prison and sent to a maximum security prison.

After the systematic elimination of the political opposition in recent years, the attacks of the Ortega regime have not stopped at the church for some time. Pope Francis had nevertheless always relied on dialogue. The Holy See is always trying to salvage diplomatic relations and what can be salvaged through patience and dialogue, the Pope said in an interview with Spanish daily ABC last December.

Yes in Nicaragua nothing seems to be salvageable. This year, Ortega even banned the Church from holding Crusade processions during Lent and Holy Week. On the occasion of the commemoration of the death of the former guerrilla leader Augusto César Sandino at the end of February, Ortega described the Catholic priests, bishops and the pope as “a mafia” who did not represent the principles of God and Christ.