The Pope’s controversial Nicaragua visit
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 July 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1983 Pope John Paul II visited Nicaragua as part of an eight-day tour of Central America.
His trip came at a time of heightened tensions between the ruling Sandinista revolutionaries and the country’s Roman Catholic hierarchy.
The Pope, a staunch anti-communist, condemned members of the Nicaraguan clergy serving in the left-wing government and was heckled by Sandinista supporters during a large open-air mass in the capital, Managua.
Mike Lanchin has been hearing the memories of Nicaraguan Carlos Pensque, who turned out to protest as the Pope passed by, and of former US Catholic News Service reporter, Nancy Frazier O’Brien, who covered the papal visit. A CTVC production for BBC World Service.
(Photo: Pope John Paul II. Credit: Bettmann via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Mike Lanshin. |
| 0:12.0 | Today we're going back to 1983 when Pope John Paul II visited Nicaragua at a time of |
| 0:18.5 | strained relations between the left wing Sandinista government and the country's Roman Catholic |
| 0:23.8 | hierarchy. The Polish-born Pope, a committed anti-communist, was on an eight-day tour |
| 0:29.8 | of Central America. But as I've been hearing, his short stay in Nicaragua was by far the |
| 0:35.5 | most testing and controversial part of his trip. The political problems began from the moment |
| 0:41.2 | the Pope landed in Nicaragua. The revolutionary junta after four years of power |
| 0:46.4 | finds itself in continual battle with the Catholic hierarchy. The Pope has ruled that Catholic priests |
| 0:52.4 | shouldn't get involved in politics, but here there are no fewer than five Catholic clergy in |
| 0:57.2 | the revolutionary government, despite Vatican pressure. At one of the rebels, the culture minister |
| 1:02.3 | Ernesto Cardinal gave an almost exaggeratedly humble greeting to his disapproving spiritual leader. |
| 1:09.6 | Father Cardinal knelt down and went to kiss the people ring. The Pope was kind of taken |
| 1:16.0 | back by that. Nancy Frazier O'Brien was the Vatican correspondent for the American Catholic |
| 1:21.9 | News Service and was traveling with the Pope. And the Pope pulled his hand away, started |
| 1:28.2 | talking to him loudly. You know, I mean, we couldn't hear what it was saying, of course, but |
| 1:34.0 | he seemed to be chastising him. To make his displeasure even clearer, the pontiff waived a |
| 1:41.3 | reprimanding finger in Father Cardinal's face. The Jesuit priest later told the BBC what had happened. |
| 1:51.8 | He told me twice to regularise my situation. He said it in a very rude manner. |
| 1:59.6 | I was surprised because within the Pope will come greet us. I also felt humiliated. |
| 2:06.8 | It was a very bad start to the people visit, but it was also a sign of the turbulent relationship |
| 2:12.8 | between the Vatican and some of Nicolago's leading clergy who had a very different view of the |
| 2:18.0 | role of the church. Between Christianity and the revolution, the Sandinistas say there is no |
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