Bishop had criminal attitude: Nicaragua

Press, 8 July 1986, Page 10

Bishop had criminal attitude: Nicaragua

NZPA-Reuter Bogota

The Nicaraguan Government, clearly concerned over sharp criticism from Pope John Paul 11, said yesterday that the expulsion of Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, a conservative, had nothing to do with Church-State relations.

Bishop Vega was put on a military helicopter on Friday, taken to Nicaragua’s northern border and sent into exile in Honduras after the Sandinists “indefinitely suspended” his right to remain in Nicaragua. Bishop Vega, aged 56, is a Nicaraguan citizen.

One of the Government’s charges, not denied by Bishop Vega or the Church hierarchy, was that on March 5 he met Enrique Bermudez, military commander of the biggest rebel group. Ber-

mudez served in the hated National Guard of the dictator, Anastasio Somoza, who was ousted on July 19, 1979, by a broad-based revolution led by the Sandinists.

Pope John Paul, visiting Colombia, condemned the move against the vice president of Nicaragua’s Bishops’ Conference as “an almost incredible act” and said it contradicted repeated assurances from the Sandinists that they wanted to coexist peacefully with the Roman Catholic church. Vatican officials rated the Pope’s statement as his most explicit criticism to date of the Left-wing Government in Managua and said relations between Nicaragua and the Vatican had sunk, to a new low.

The Nicaraguan Embassy issued a statement which detailed the

charges against Bishop Vega and said he had displayed a “criminal attitude” and broken Nicaraguan laws. According to diplomatic sources, similar statements were being issued by all Nicaraguan embassies- in Latin America, a predominantly Roman Catholic continent where the influence of the Church runs deep.

“The Sandinists seem to be worried about their image in Latin America,” said a European diplomat. “What the Pope says in Colombia is heard throughout the continent.” The statement said that in spite of the hostile attitude several bishops had shown towards the Nicaraguan Government over the last five years, the Sandinista leadership had made great efforts to reduce tensions with the Church hierarchy.