The Catholic Church has had a great influence on people in Latin America as people there have always been very religious. However, people’s attitude towards Rome as well as the Pope changed in the 1980s in Nicaragua. Socioeconomic situation in the country became intolerable for thousands of people who had to polarized society where rich people were supported by the Catholic Church in Rome while some Catholic priests started supporting people’s struggle against the social oppression and even helped Marxist (Berntzen, 2012). Hundreds of people had been killed on both sides and everybody was waiting for peace and justice. The visit of John Paul II was seen as a possible way to console people but everybody’s hope vanished during the mass held in the central square of Managua.
It is necessary to look back and shed more light on the position of the Catholic Church and John Paul II. The Pope was Polish and he learnt about Communist and Marxist approaches from his own sad experiences so he was strongly against any demonstration of this social paradigm (Moss, 2008). This fact can explain the Pope’s strict position and unwillingness to show any support to a liberation-theology proponents (Kraul & Chu, 2005).
Nonetheless, people of Nicaragua did not think of political paradigm, they wanted peace and consolation which could be given by a few words about the victims of the oppressive regime in the Pope’s mass (Riding, 1983). However, John Paul II did not “give even a crumb to the revolution” as he did not want to listen about it (Hoyt, 1996). People were upset and devastated.
Lots of people of Nicaragua were afraid of more killings and persecution. They were afraid that such position of the Pope will make the Government even more oppressive. In reality, this is exactly what happened. The position of the Roman Catholic Church and its Head made the society of Nicaragua even more polarized and the tension started increasing steadily.
The rich obtained support of one of the most powerful institutions in the country and exploited this in their attempts to suppress people’s resistance. The Roman Church managed to retain its hierarchy and avoid the split into a popular church and the conventional one. Of course, the price of this success was very high and it cost the country hundreds of people’s lives. People still remember about their hopes and the way they were destroyed.
Reference List
Berntzen, E. (2012). Religion and politics in Nicaragua: What difference does a revolution make? Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, XLII(1-2), 159-182.
Hoyt, K. (1996). The 1983 visit of Pope John Paul II to Nicaragua.
Kraul, C., & Chu, H. (2005, April 11). Pope says taking sides in Nicaragua is peril to church The Seattle Times.
Moss, W.G. (2008). An age of progress?: Clashing twentieth-century global forces. New York, NY: Anthem Press.
Riding, A. (1983, March 5). Pope says taking sides in Nicaragua is peril to church. The New York Times.