Church-State Clash Bedevils Nicaragua : Sandinistas Try to Censor Mounting Criticism by Catholic Clergy

Tensions between Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church have escalated again in recent months, this time over Sandinista moves to censor the bishops’ mounting criticism of the revolutionary regime.

Relations within the divided church also have deteriorated, as demonstrated by an Easter Week exchange of insults between Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, a longtime critic of the leftist government, and Foreign Minister Miguel D’Escoto, a priest who represents the so-called “popular church,” a faction that supports the Sandinistas. D’Escoto is barred by the Vatican from performing priestly duties.

D’Escoto called the cardinal a traitor for not condemning killings and other human rights abuses that U.S.-supported guerrillas, called contras , are accused of committing in the countryside . Obando responded by suggesting that D’Escoto and his followers are “the devil” dividing the church.

‘Worst Internal Problem’

“This is the worst internal problem the Sandinistas have, and it’s obviously getting worse,” one Western diplomat said about the church-state conflict. “The Nicaraguan people are uncomfortable with the antagonism between the city of God and the city of man.”

The Catholic Church typically plays a political role in Latin America, and in highly Catholic Nicaragua, the cardinal and other bishops wield much influence. Obando has become the country’s leading opposition figure, and he is closely identified with opposition political parties, trade unions and business groups.

He and his bishops have stepped up accusations about religious persecution in Nicaragua, labeling the Marxist-led government as anti-Catholic.

Pastoral Freedom Claimed

Government leaders and their supporters in the pro-government popular church counter that there is pastoral freedom in the country and accuse the bishops of lending political support to the contras.

The latest in a series of confrontations dating back several years began in January, when Sandinista officials closed down the church’s radio station, ostensibly because it failed to join a mandatory national hookup to broadcast President Daniel Ortega’s New Year’s message.

Church officials said the omission was only a technical error, but the government called it one of many such violations.

The Sandinistas have accused Obando of campaigning against the government on trips to the United States. They also criticized Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference, in March when he attended a Washington forum on Nicaragua sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Talked With a Contra

During the forum, Vega spoke briefly with Adolfo Calero, head of largest group of contras, the Nicaraguan Democratic Front.

The Sandinistas charged that Vega, by attending the forum, lent church support to President Reagan’s request to Congress for $100 million in military aid for the contras. Reagan and other backers of the contras often cite church leaders’ charges of persecution in arguing their case.

Defending his trip, Vega said the church must look after all Nicaraguans and speak out against civil rights abuses. He said he spoke to Calero only about possibilities for peace talks between the Sandinistas and the contras.

Press Office Seized

More recently, the Ministry of Justice declared the church’s publications office to be illegal and seized its property. The government had occupied the office of the archdiocese’s Commission on Social Promotion last October after the church tried to publish a new newspaper that was not registered with the government as required by law.

Defending such episodes of censorship, the government has said that church publications carry political rather than religious messages.

“Clearly, there has been a decision to cut out the ability of the church to propagate its views,” a Western diplomat said, asking not to be identified by name. “There is religious freedom here in that the church is open and sacramental life is unimpaired. But radio, newspapers--the church’s ability to propagate its views--are intolerable (to the government).”

‘U.S. Aggression’ Blamed

Deputy Interior Minister Omar Cabezas said that moves to censor the church are a response to increasing U.S. support for the contras. He said the government believes that church leaders are the voice of the United States.

“U.S. aggression makes us react this way,” Cabezas said.

The government last month also refused to let La Prensa, an opposition newspaper, publish a pastoral letter calling for “reconciliation,” a word generally understood to mean negotiations with the contras. The bishops have criticized military conscription, charged the Sandinistas with civil and human rights abuses and repeatedly pushed for government talks with the contras. The Sandinistas, labeling the contras U.S. puppets, say they want to negotiate directly with American authorities.

‘Belligerent Priests, Nuns’

The pastoral letter also strongly attacked the pro-government church faction, charging that “a belligerent group of priests, nuns and lay workers” manipulates religious ideas for political ends.

Msgr. Bismarck Carballo, the cardinal’s spokesman, said the government harasses church people and that more than 100 Catholic leaders and lay workers have been detained for brief periods in recent years.

Representatives of the pro-government church faction reply that harassment comes from the church hierarchy, not the government. They say the hierarchy has transferred at least 20 pro-government priests out of the country or out of churches in poor neighborhoods into well-to-do areas so that they can no longer be near the people for whom they want to work.

Liberation Theology Favored

Many elements of the pro-government church embrace so-called “liberation theology,” described by its proponents as an interpretation of Catholic doctrine advocating “a preferential option for the poor.”

Working mainly in Latin America, liberation theologians have stirred controversy because of their political activism and because some of them mingle Marxist doctrine with Catholic precepts.

Pope John Paul II has repeatedly criticized such clergymen, and the Vatican last month formally defined an acceptable form of liberation theology in terms consistent with the Pope’s views. Critics of liberation theology often cite Nicaragua, where several priests hold government positions, as an example of the kind of leftist political activism encouraged by the disputed doctrine.

Three priests, all now barred from priestly functions by the Vatican, serve in the Sandinista Cabinet. Besides D’Escoto, they are Education Minister Fernando Cardenal and his brother, Culture Minister Ernesto Cardenal.

Numbers in Dispute

Bishop Carballo said that only about 20 of Nicaragua’s 320 priests are identified with the popular church faction, which he charged is a creation of the Sandinista government. But Father Cesar Jerez, rector of the Jesuit University of Central America, said that at least one-third of the country’s priests identify with the popular church.

Both sides within the church agree that their internal controversy is fundamentally about politics, the guerrilla war and support for the Sandinistas, rather than about theology.

“We distinguish between politics in the larger sense and in the strict sense,” Carballo said. “Politics in the broader sense is the search for common good. We participate in the defense of that. Politics in the narrow sense is the search for power, and the church does not have any interest in power.”

However, at a recent meeting of the opposition Nicaraguan Workers Central, a union federation, Bishop Vega told workers that good Christians think for themselves. Obviously referring to the Sandinista government, he urged the union members not to allow others to make decisions for them.