Nicaragua v the Church:

Pope Francis used his New Year’s Day address to highlight concern over the worsening situation of the Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua as a result of a protracted crackdown by the government of President Daniel Ortega, which has detained clerics, expelled missionaries, closed Catholic radio stations and limited religious celebrations.

Of course the church itself has a long long history of doing all that to others. It has detained people, expelled people, closed libraries and burned books, and limited non-religious celebrations. It’s a very coercive organization.

Speaking to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional New Year’s Angelus prayer and blessing, Francis said he was “following with concern what is happening in Nicaragua, where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom.”

And how many people have been deprived of their freedom by the church over the past two thousand years or so? How many have been executed by it? How many tortured?

It’s not the benign institution the Times is framing it as being.

Vatican News reported on Monday that at least 14 priests, two seminarians and a bishop had been arrested in recent days in Nicaragua, and that the country’s top church leader, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, had expressed his closeness “to the families and communities who are without their priests at this time.”

Are priests supposed to be immune from arrest? What if they’ve been raping children? A hell of a lot of priests got away with doing exactly that for generations. It’s odd that the Times doesn’t even pause to ask the question. Maybe the priests did something criminal? Like kiddy-fiddling? Or worse? Why should we just assume they’re innocent?

In the long campaign to dismantle the church’s reach in the country, dozens of clerics and missionaries have been detained or expelled, and Catholic institutions shut down.

Is it just self-evident that the church should have maximal reach in the country? Not to me.

In March, the Vatican closed its embassy in Nicaragua, after the Nicaraguan government proposed suspending relations with the Holy See, and its representative to Managua, Msgr. Marcel Diouf, left the country for Costa Rica, The Associated Press reported. The Vatican’s ambassador had been forced to leave a year earlier.

Is that supposed to be a bad thing? The Vatican isn’t a country. It’s a small area within the city of Rome. Why should the Vatican have ambassadors at all? Why should any country be obliged to recognize them?