Christianity and the revolution in conflict

Recent events in Nicaragua have indicated an everincreasing gap between the Catholic hierarchy and the Sandinista Government. Sr Pamela Hussey and Francis McDonagh of the Catholic Institute for International Relations examine the causes.
THE EXPULSION of ten foreign priests from Nicaragua on July 9 must be seen against the background of the campaign of armed incursions and sabotage directed at Nicaragua since 1982 by counterrevolutionary groups (known as "contras") operating from Honduras, and supported by United States government agencies.
The expulsions followed a well-publicised march organised by Archbishop Obando y Bravo of Managua in support of one of his priests whom the Government suspects of being a Contra agent.
The case against the priest, Fr Amado Pena, rests on information from a captured Contra leader, and two films of the priest, one purporting to show him arguing in favour of provoking violence and assassination, and another in which he is allegedly seen delivering explosives to a contact.
Archbishop Obando y Bravo was apparently offered an opportunity to examine the films, but is said to have rejected it, dismissing them as "a technical trick".
Government sources have described the expulsions as "a forceful reaction", to indicate to the Archbishop the seriousness with which it viewed the case of Fr Pena, but it also marks a further deterioration in relations between the Government and the bishops and with Archbishop Obando y Bravo in particular.
This incident is the third in a series of clashes between the Government and the bishops, in which the Government has felt that the bishops were giving support to the contras.
In September 1983 they denounced the newlypromulgated conscription law as an attempt to indoctrinate young people, and in their Easter pastoral this year they called for unconditional negotiations with the contras.
The present situation is in marked contrast with the support given by the bishops to the Sandinista victory in 1979. "We are confident," they said in a pastoral letter at the time, "that our revolutionary process will be something original, creative, truly Nicaraguan and in no sense imitative. For what we, together with most Nicaraguans, seek, is a process that will result in a society completely and truly Nicaraguan, one that is not capitalist nor dependent nor totalitarian."
What has changed? To some observers the answer is obvious; the Sandinistas, being Marxists, were bound to be totalitarian and sooner or later to move \against the Church.
This view is, however, rejected by one of the most experienced observers of the situation, Fr Cesar Jerez SJ, from 1976 to 1982 Provincial of the Jesuits in Central America, and now director of research and post-graduate studies at the Jesuit university in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.
Fr Jerez first warns against the temptation to exaggerate the significance of particular incidents. This, he says, distracts attention from the immense task of tackling the poverty and deprivation in Nicaragua, a task which the Sandinistas have begun and one in which they have the support of a majority of Nicaraguans.
The present tensions, in Fr Jerez's view, arc not the result of persecution of the Church by the Government, but of the difficulties all groups in Nicaragua are experiencing in coming to terms with the changes brought about by the revolution.
These difficulties affect the Church too, and within the Church Fr Jerez distinguishes three groups.
The first reacts against any element of Marxism in government policy without distinguishing between forms of Marxism or differentiating as Pope John XXIII did in Pacem in Terris, between Marxism and Marxists. This position, which increasingly seems to be that of Archbishop Obando y Bravo of Managua, ignores the achievements of the revolution, the seriousness of the attacks on it and, above all, its popular support.
The second group makes it clear that no return to the old unjust system is possible; while it rejects Marxism, it has no practical alternative to the present situation.
A third group believes in a continued Christian presence in the revolution as the only way of giving the Church's message credibility. This group includes many committed Catholics, clergy, religious and laity.
Many of them are members of the Sandinista Front. "Their Christian and revolutionary beliefs are expressed in the conviction that there is no contradiction between being Christians, active members of the people of God, and being Sandinista revolutionaries. Their witnessing Christian presence in the heart of a revolutionary process in power is almost unique, and has shaken the conventional wisdom of orthodox Marxist revolutionaries in Latin America and in Europe."
There are doctrinaire Marxists in the Sandinista movement, but, says Fr Jerez, they are a minority and the official
Sandinista position recognises the contribution of Christians to the revolution.
The recognition has beet. given practical form by the appointment of priests as ministers and government officials. In a further nuance to the government's "forceful" reaction in the recent incident, it was subsequently announced that another priest, Fr Fernando Cardinal SJ, had been appointed minister of education.
Supporters of the Government, including some