Pastoral Advice

The Pope vs. the Sandinistas "I would wish to invite you to pray for the church of Nicaragua, which in recent days has lived through a sad event. It is especially serious, added to the trials already suffered there." Pope John Paul II's words, coming at the end of his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square last Wednesday, were unusually strong, but so was the provocation. Two days earlier, Nicaragua's Marxist-led Sandinista government had expelled ten foreign priests, four of them Spaniards, whom It accused of being involved in anti-government activities.

Seven of the expelled clergymen had joined Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo and several hundred protesters in a march through Managua on Monday. They were supporting a Nicaraguan priest whom the Sandinistas have accused of supplying weapons to the U.S.-backed contras, who are trying to overthrow the Sandinistas. The charge against all of the expelled priests was that they had criticized the government. "Foreign priests do not have the right to participate in politics against the government," declared Sergio Ramirez, a member of the Sandinista junta. Responded Archbishop Obando: "The government wants a church that is aligned with the Marxist-Leninist regime."

Although the Roman Catholic hierarchy supported the Sandinistas' overthrow of Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, it became disenchanted as the new leadership imposed curbs on personal freedom, including press censorship and restrictions on public assembly. More recently, the church has opposed the government's decision to draft all men over the age of 17. In addition, the Pope has been at odds with four priests who disregarded his opposition to political involvement by taking high-level positions in the Sandinista government.

Tension between the church and the government surfaced in March 1983 when Sandinista groups shouted down the Pope as he spoke at a meeting in Managua. Last Easter Sunday, Nicaragua's nine bishops issued a pastoral letter that strongly urged the government to open a direct dialogue with the contras and opposition leaders. The Sandinistas are now apparently trying to link the bishops to the contras in the hope of diffusing the impact of what the government fears will be a church-supported boycott of elections set for Nov. 4.

In Washington, meanwhile, a former Salvadoran guerrilla commander who has been cooperating with U.S. intelligence gave support last week to an oft-disputed assertion of the Reagan Administration by noting that "99.9%" of the Salvadoran guerrillas' weapons once came from Nicaragua. According to Administration officials, the guerrillas are now doing so badly that they have to recruit new members forcibly. -