Word: obando
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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...
...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. He referred to a letter he had written to Nicaraguan bishops last June...
...many Nicaraguans doubt that it will. Fiallos also said that the Sandinistas should lift their nine-month-old state of emergency, which allows press censorship and arbitrary detention, and that they should end the "illegal and unjust" confiscation of property. Fiallos strongly defended the politically moderate Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo, whom he described as "one of the bravest men in Nicaragua." The prelate has been highly critical of the Sandinistas, although he still defends the spirit of the 1979 revolution that overthrew former Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Said Fiallos in the suppressed interview: "The revolution began with a social...
Fiallos' remarks echo those of many other critics, but they were particularly stinging to the Sandinistas because the diplomat was for several years a loyal revolutionary. A deeply religious man with close personal ties to Obando y Bravo, he secretly joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front in 1978, when the movement was still an armed underground force. During the anti-Somoza insurrection, he secretly stored and transported arms for the guerrillas' organized clandestine rebel meetings. Washington has authorized Fiallos, who has not yet decided whether to return to Nicaragua, to stay in the U.S. indefinitely. Said he last...
...Antonio Mora, his chief assistant, and several relatives of Somoza, including Luis Pallais, publisher of Novedades. Somoza had never bothered to occupy the presidential offices, preferring more secure quarters in his bunker on the grounds of the nearby National Guard training center. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Managua, Miguel Obando y Bravo, and the bishops of León and Granada, who earlier in the month had demanded Somoza's resignation, immediately offered their services as mediators. So did the ambassadors of Costa Rica and Panama. They quickly reported back with the guerrillas' demands: 1) the release of 59 political prisoners...