Pope Francis: “Nicaragua has a shameless dictatorship”

For the first time, Pope Francis compared the government of Nicaragua to a communist or Hitlerite “dictatorship,” and commented “with great respect” that President Daniel Ortega suffers from “a mental imbalance.” At the same time, he referred to Bishop Rolando Álvarez: “He wanted to give his testimony and did not accept exile.”

In an extensive interview with the Argentine media Infobae on numerous subjects, the Pope referred, for the first time, in strong terms about the situation in Nicaragua. For several years, many Nicaraguans in the country and in exile have called on him to take a strong stand on the crimes of the dictatorship.

The journalist Daniel Hadad, founder of Infobae, asked the Pope what he thought about Ortega’s attacks on the Catholic Church, and Francis replied: “with great respect, I have no choice but to think about an imbalance in the person (Daniel Ortega) who leads.”

During the recent commemoration of the death of Augusto C. Sandino, at the end of February, Ortega described the priests, bishops and popes as “a mafia” that do not represent the principles of God or those of Christ.

“Who chooses the pope? How many votes does the Pope get among what is the Christian people? If we are going to talk about democracy, the people should first elect the priests of the people (…) let the people decide and not the mafia that is organized in the Vatican,” said Ortega.

Nicaragua has been under a Police State for going on five years with most elemental civil and human rights suspended in practice.

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times