Word: ortega
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...infamy, the defamation, the lies!" Ortega thundered during a recent speech. "Who was slandered more than Christ? Who was defamed more than Christ?" Ortega reminded his followers that "we are a faithful nation...God gives our families the strength to find happiness and to overcome the most difficult moments...
...Despite her husband's attempts to appropriate Christian symbolism to his own cause, Ortega's wife, Rosario Murillo, subscribes to a jumble of religious beliefs that might be euphemistically described as "New Age." Murillo - known to be an eccentric intellectual and spiritual influence on the president - has created a perplexing religious culture based on strange symbolism, superstition and fear. A disciple of the miracle-working Indian guru Sai Baba, Murillo has mixed mystic spiritualism with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the home-cooked philosophy of Gen. Augusto Sandino, and added a pinch of native indigenous beliefs to serve...
...result might be disorienting to some of the Sandinistas' more traditional Christian base: Ortega, dressed in pastels in order to channel positive energy, delivers a meandering speech on the danger of devils and the love of Christ and of Sandino, while sitting in front of psychedelic painting of an eyeball in the center of a hand surrounded by snakes - a colorful mural painted by Murillo behind Ortega's chair in Sandinista headquarters, to protect him from evil...
...contrast with the religious experience of the first Sandinista government, during the 1980s, couldn't be starker: Back then, some of the leading figures in the movement, and in Ortega's cabinet, were Catholic priests who championed Liberation Theology - the leftist interpretation of Christian scripture as a revolutionary call for activism in pursuit of social, political and economic justice. The Sandinista priests were rebuked by Pope John Paul II over their involvement in politics; the pontiff's public scolding in 1983 of then Culture Minister Father Ernesto Cardenal coming as a major blow to the Sandinistas' standing among their predominantly...
...When he began seeking reelection, Ortega realized he needed to make nice with the conservative church hierarchy, so he reconciled with one of his staunchest opponents from the 1980s, the head of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo. Ortega took communion from Obando y Bravo in 2004, and then asked the cardinal to preside over his marriage to Murillo...