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Thank you to the Archbishop of San José, Monsignor José Rafael Quirós, for welcoming us with such solidarity into this church, and to Father Mauricio Granados, rector of this Votive Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Thank you as well to Dominican priest Rafael Aragón, exiled from his homeland like many of us here today, and to Father Bosco, who joined him in celebrating this Mass.
A religious ceremony like this one, honoring the life of a Christian woman who was also the first woman elected president by popular vote in Latin America, and who led Nicaragua’s democratic transition during one of the most difficult and complex moments in its history, would never have been possible in our homeland today, due to the brutal political persecution facing the Catholic Church.
This weekend in Nicaragua, some parishioners asked their priests to pray for my mother during Mass or to dedicate a service to her. The response was: “It’s better not to. We can’t, because it’s too dangerous. We’ll include her in the prayer for all the faithful departed, we remember her fondly, and we would love to offer the Mass in her name, but we simply can’t take that risk.”
And one might ask: why is it dangerous in Nicaragua to offer a prayer or a Mass for Doña Violeta de Chamorro? Just as, in the past, praying for imprisoned bishops and priests has been treated as a punishable crime—why is there censorship against a woman of peace who has never posed a threat to national security? The only possible explanation is the regime’s fear of hope spreading.
In the early hours of June 14, 2025, the light of our mother, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, was extinguished, but that same day, hope was reborn in Nicaragua. A hope embodied in the example of her life, in her legacy of integrity and honesty, in her commitment to freedom and democracy, in the lived experience that it is possible to overcome fear in order to express the will of the people, and above all, in her stature as a stateswoman who governed democratically, even in the face of authoritarian threats.
Those values represent a hope that Nicaraguans must nurture every day, through small actions both inside the country and in exile, if we are truly committed to breaking free from a dynastic dictatorship, to bringing about real change in Nicaragua, and to allowing my mother, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, to finally rest in peace in her homeland.
I also want to thank her nurses, Rosa and Katherine, and Griselda, the women who accompanied my mother through the last years, months, days, and hours of her life, providing her with extraordinary care, with love and professionalism. I also want to thank the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican doctors who allowed her to get through her prolonged illness.
In October 2023, when my siblings Pedro Joaquín and Cristiana had been released from prison and forcibly exiled, and Claudia Lucía had to travel to the United States for health reasons, we made the decision to move our mother to San José so we could give her here the love and affection we were no longer able to give her in a homeland that had been taken from us.
She held on to life, and finally, in January of this year, the four of us were able to reunite in San José, to sing to her, to pray with her, to kiss her, to hold her, and to thank her endlessly for her life.
And because I had the privilege of being by my mother’s side in Costa Ric, and because we know firsthand the pain of exile and the forced separation of families, we stand in solidarity with all political prisoners who never had the chance to see their mothers and fathers again before they passed.
We stand in solidarity with all those in exile who haven’t been able to be with their loved ones in their final moments in Nicaragua, and with every family torn apart by the cruelty of the dictators who have turned Nicaragua into a nation of the banished.
Thank you also to the people and the State of Costa Rica, who welcomed our parents during their first exile in 1957, when they fled the Somoza dynastic dictatorship. Since then, Costa Rica has continued to receive the Chamorro Barrios family, and hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans, migrants, and refugees, with solidarity through the ’70s, the ’80s, and now into the 21st century.
The first time I truly felt proud of my mother, back when I was a child and thought she was the best mom in the world, she was a young and beautiful woman who loved playing baseball—and was quite a good hitter, too. My mother also knew how to ride horses to herd cattle, and I always remember her being very close to her children.
My father was a powerful, earthy force who would arrive home punctually after the evening edition of La Prensa, back when it was an afternoon paper, and my mother could tell whether he was in a good or bad mood by the way he slammed the door.
In 1967, after the massacre at the opposition protest on January 22, I was just ten when I had to open the door of our house to a National Guard lieutenant who came to arrest my father.
My father faced this new imprisonment with calmness, as if he were already prepared. He took off his wedding ring and kissed my mother goodbye. As many times before, my mother met his struggle and call for justice with extraordinary dignity.
In November 2022, when Desirée and I represented my family at Tulane University for the presentation of the “Chamorro Barrios Document Collection,” I read for the first time the handwritten prison letters exchanged between my parents in 1959—a deeply moving story of love and patriotism, filled with immense pain but without a trace of resentment.
This is how my mother was shaped by my father’s fight against the Somoza dictatorship, in pain and in joy for life, both embraced by their deep Christian convictions, and how she prepared herself for the mission she would eventually undertake.
He was an avid reader, journalist, and writer, and my mother was a very lively person who taught herself to play the piano by ear. She connected deeply with people’s emotions through songs like those by Agustín Lara, Cielito Lindo, and La Palomita Guasiruca.
The day my mother passed away, Alan Riding, the journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Mexico, who put Nicaragua on the international press radar in the mid-1970s—sent me a message recalling January 10, 1978. He wrote:
“Dear Carlos Fernando: My deepest condolences on the passing of your mother. She lived an extraordinary life, especially when she took up the bloodied banner of your father and gave dignity to the fight for democracy in Nicaragua. I met her about 50 years ago, and my first impression of her remains vivid in my memory.”
Our parents never imposed on us, their children, any specific mandate about what we should do in life—other than to be honest citizens. They taught us by example, as they also led by example in their homeland, living in coherence with their ideals and actions to build Nicaragua into a democratic republic with social justice.
Everything we learned about tolerance, we owe to my mother—who was also a grandmother and great-grandmother—generous in her love both for her family and her country.
Over the years, some have asked me what my mother thought about the April Rebellion and the massacre, especially since she was completely retired from public life and affected by illness at that time.
On the afternoon of April 18, 2018, the day a protest was taking place on Camino de Oriente, I left the CONFIDENCIAL newsroom and went to visit her at her home in Las Palmas, as was my routine. We sat in her room and turned on the TV, which was showing images of the protest and the brutal police and paramilitary repression.
After watching those images of repression for more than 30 minutes, she simply said, “What is this barbarity? What is this barbarity?”
Seven years later, we say to you: thank you, Mom, for planting the seed of hope with which we will bring change, so that Nicaragua can become a Republic again, rebuilt not with revenge, but with justice.
Thank you, Mom, thank you Teteta, as your grandchildren and great-grandchildren call you, for your immense example of love and generosity.
And I promise you that when Nicaragua becomes a Republic again, you will return to rest in peace in your homeland, so that all Nicaraguans can honor your memory and your legacy in a free country.
