Daniel Ortega who is Nicaragua’s President has on Wednesday blasted the Catholic Church while calling it a “perfect dictatorship” for not allowing some of its members to actually participate in the election of the pope and other authority figures.
In the Church, “everything is imposed. It’s a perfect dictatorship. It’s a perfect tyranny,” the President had vented said, reflecting ongoing tensions between his government and the religious institution over the 2018 protests.
“If they are going to be democratic, let them start with Catholics voting for the pope, for cardinals, for bishops,” Ortega said during a televised speech to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Nicaraguan police’s establishment.
The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has also been under some massive increasing government pressure since Ortega had also accused it of backing the protests against his government in 2018 and crackdown against most of the demonstrators had also left hundreds dead.
Ortega had also maintained that the protests had also been part of an opposition plot which was backed by the United States to unseat him and accuses bishops of complicity.
During his speech Wednesday, Ortega called out bishops and priests as “killers” and “coup plotters” working on behalf of “American imperialism.”
“I would say to His Holiness the Pope, respectfully, to the Catholic authorities — I am Catholic — as a Christian, I don’t feel represented,” he said, referencing the Church’s “terrible history.”
Ortega criticized subjects ranging from the Inquisition in Spain and South America to the abuse of Indigenous children in Canada.
“We hear (the Church) talk about democracy,” he said, suggesting that the faithful elect representatives to positions of Church leadership.
Pope Francis, leader of the Catholic Church, earlier this month insisted on the importance of “never stopping the dialogue” with Nicaragua.
“There is a dialogue. We are talking with the government,” the pope said. “That does not mean that we approve of everything the government does, or that we disapprove.”
In his speech Wednesday, Ortega also criticized the United States Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols, and the government of Chile, whose president Gabriel Boric recently criticized the Nicaraguan president for human rights violations.