Word: managua
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Even the last-minute preparations for the Pope's arrival in Nicaragua turned into a political tug-of-war between church hierarchy and state. Managua's Archbishop Miguel Obando y Brando, an outspoken critic of the regime, complained that the Sandinista government's plans to use publicly-owned transportation to shuttle Nicaraguans to sites along the papal route were an attempt to control who would be able to see John Paul. Some parish priests urged the faithful to ignore government timetables determining when they could leave for the Mass and instead to form their own religious processions...
...that the government felt it could only benefit from a successful visit. State-controlled television provided full and uncensored coverage of John Paul's stay in Costa Rica. Workers were given an extended weekend to give them time to see the Pope. Even the Sandinista workers' headquarters in downtown Managua was draped with a red-and-black banner welcoming John Paul with "revolutionary...
...immediately upon his arrival at Managua's Augusto Cesar Sandino Airport, the Pope was plunged into national politics. While the sunburned Pontiff stood in the blazing heat for an airport welcoming ceremony, Sandinista junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra delivered a 25-minute greeting, in which he blasted U.S. foreign policy and warned that "the footsteps of interventionist boots echo threateningly in the White House and the Pentagon." He told the Pope that the Nicaraguan people were "martyred and crucified every day, and we demand solidarity with right on our side." Ortega also went out of his way to tell...
...sermon to 500,000 in Managua's vast Plaza 19 de Julio, the Pope left little doubt about where he stood in the church-state dispute. As a poster gallery of Nicaraguan revolutionary heroes kept silent watch, John Paul exhorted priests to obey their bishops and to preserve the unity of the church. It was a clear show of support for Archbishop Obando y Bravo. In tones that must have echoed strangely from the same platform Fidel Castro had once used to praise the Sandinistas, the Pope condemned the "popular church," a grassroots movement in Nicaragua committed to revolution...
Reported by Bernard Diederich/ Managua, Timothy Loughran/ San Salvador and Wilton Wynn with the Pope