Pope asks Nicaraguan government to let expelled nuns return

By Philip Pullella

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) – Pope Francis requested the Nicaraguan authorities on Thursday to permit expelled nuns of the order based by Mom Teresa to return to Nicaragua, saying they had been innocent “revolutionaries of the gospel.”

The 18 nuns of the Missionaries of Charity order had been taken to the border with Costa Rica in July as a part of a crackdown on the Catholic Church by the federal government of Daniel Ortega.

The Church within the Central American nation acted as a mediator throughout 2018 protests in opposition to the federal government. Since then, the Church has had a strained relationship with the federal government after calling for justice for greater than 360 individuals who died in the course of the unrest.

“On the very least I might anticipate that the sisters of Mom Teresa (be allowed) to return,” Francis stated in response to a query about Nicaragua on the aircraft coming back from a Kazakhstan journey.

“These girls are good revolutionaries, however of the gospel. They don’t seem to be making conflict in opposition to anybody. Quite the opposite, all of us want these girls,” he stated, including that their expulsion was “inexplicable.”

The nuns, who had been working amongst Nicaragua’s poor for greater than 30 years, had their authorized standing revoked.

NICARAGUA’S CRACKDOWN ON THE CHURCH

In latest months, authorities of the Sandinista authorities have detained monks whereas others have gone into exile.

Bishop Rolando Alvarez of Matagalpa within the north of the nation was whisked away throughout a pre-dawn raid final month and put beneath home arrest within the capital Managua.

Alvarez, a critic of Ortega’s authorities and one of many Nicaraguan Church’s most influential figures, had been confined for 2 weeks in a Church home in Matagalpa together with 5 monks, one seminarian and a cameraman for a non secular tv channel.

In March, the Vatican’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Archbishop Waldemar Sommertag, who had been essential of Nicaragua’s slide away from democracy, needed to go away the nation all of the sudden after the federal government withdrew its approval of the envoy.

Francis stated the Vatican was in talks with the federal government to enhance the Church’s state of affairs, which has had severely strained relations with the federal government since a harsh crackdown on protests in 2018.

Bishop Silvio Baez, additionally a critic of the federal government, went into exile in 2019.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Enhancing by Josie Kao)