CHRISTIANITY & CRISIS Vol. 45, No. 12 (22 July 1985), 307-310 Under the red hat Getting to know ’s new cardinal By Andrew Reding “GOD BLESSES : MONSIGNOR OBANDO A CARDINAL,” read the banner headline when the April 24 issue of La Prensa hit the streets of Managua, announcing Pope John Paul II’s appointment of Managua’s archbishop to the College of Cardinals. Halfway down the page, another bold heading—“GREAT POPULAR JUBILATION”—appeared over a story reporting how people in the city responded when La Prensa staffers told them the news. The result was one of those persons-on-the-street collages so popular with the editors of Barricada, the Sandinista paper, and the oppositionist La Prensa: Try as they may, they never seem to find anyone who disagrees with their viewpoint. Curiously, in this case not one of the faces in the accompanying row of photographs betrayed any sign of emotion, let alone jubilation. But in La Prensa’s own newsroom, the joy was doubtless real. These days, in the wake of its failure to elicit wide popular support for Washington-based anti-Sandinista banker Arturo Cruz, La Prensa has launched an intensified campaign of veneration for Miguel Obando y Bravo. It is a shrewd strategy. Unlike Cruz, Obando has lived in Nicaragua all his life, was the first Nicaraguan to become an archbishop, and as such appeals strongly to the emotions of hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguan Catholics whose religiosity remains essentially preconciliar, thus heavily identified with ecclesiastical authority. La Prensa has labored hard to reinforce such attitudes by cultivating an image of piety and rectitude around the person of the archbishop. The effort is political in intent; La Prensa badly needs a prominent and respectable figure as symbol for its anti-Sandinista crusade. A major, though perhaps unwitting, contribution to this effort was a highly flattering profile of Obando (“Nicaragua’s Fighting Archbishop”) written by Steven Kinzer, Managua bureau chief for the New York Times. First published in the Times Magazine for November 18, 1984, the article was promptly translated into Spanish and featured in two installments in La Prensa. The story was important in the U.S. because of the Times’ reputation for balanced reporting, and because Kinzer is known as co-author of Bitter Fruit, a penetrating expose of the CIA-directed overthrow of the elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. Its usefulness to La Prensa was enhanced because the Times is widely regarded among middle-class Central Americans as the voice of the left in the U.S.; if even this source had to acknowledge Obando as a brave fighter for religious freedom and human rights, La Prensa’s objectives were significantly furthered. Yet according to well-placed Nicaraguan Catholics, both clerical and lay, Kinzer’s profile is laden with half-truths and marred by omissions of significant detail. My sources declined to be quoted by name, but they would not have been inaccessible to Kinzer, and some of what they said is corroborated by accounts in other media (the Miami Herald and the Washington Post) and by knowledgeable church-related sources in the U.S. To begin with, there’s the Mercedes-Benz incident. Anastasio Somoza Debayle was still in power in Nicaragua when Obando was named archbishop of Managua in 1970. Among his many other holdings was the country’s Mercedes-Benz dealership. Not surprisingly, he presented one of the luxury cars to the new archbishop as a gift. Kinzer tells the story briskly: “Somoza gave Obando a new Mercedes-Benz; the archbishop raffled it off and used the proceeds for church work.” The implication is that Obando, a man of principle, perceived the gift as tainted and disposed of it immediately. In reality Obando used the limousine with no evident sign of discomfort, until anti-Somoza Catholics turned it into a source of embarrassment. A popular saying rose—De la mulita a la Mercedes-Benz (“from the humble she-mule to the Mercedes-Benz”)—alluding both to the transformation from the archbishop’s humble beginnings (when, in Kinzer’s words, he “rode oxcarts and pack animals through the alternately muddy and dusty back country to counsel the faithful in remote parishes”), and to the contrast between Jesus entering Jerusalem on an ass and Obando traveling about Managua in a Mercedes-Benz. From the emergent perspective of liberation theology, Obando’s acceptance was biblically tantamount to accepting a new chariot from Pontius Pilate. Acting out of that perspective, Father Fernando Cardenal led a delegation from his community to counsel the archbishop to dispose of the vehicle. Obando protested that the Mercedes-Benz was like a wedding gift, a reference to the tradition that a new bishop’s installation effects a marital bond between him and his diocese. Cardenal is said to have cautioned, “Yes, but remember you’re not getting married to Somoza.” History as instrument Another Kinzer one-liner similarly conveys interpretive overtones without appearing to do so: “[W]hen the victorious Sandinista troops converged on Managua in July 1979, Archbishop Obando offered a festive mass to welcome them.” That version of events supports a view Obando and his supporters like to encourage, that the archbishop originally sympathized with the Sandinistas, only to pull away in disillusionment as the FSLN betrayed its democratic promises. In reality, as the Sandinistas well know, Obando worked hard in the closing days of Somoza’s rule to prevent the Frente from assuming the vanguard role in the new government that it had played during the insurrection— arguably a legitimate goal, from his perspective, but hardly a neutral or apolitical stance. For example, though Obando was properly outraged by the atrocities committed by Somoza’s forces, he wanted a purified National Guard kept in place so that the country’s armed forces would not be instruments of the Frente. He flew to Caracas, Venezuela, and then to San José, Costa Rica, to urge the leaders of other Latin nations that had helped arm the revolutionaries to help obtain a stronger position for the anti-Somoza right in the provisional government—most particularly for soon-to-be junta member (and current contra leader) Alfonso Robelo. Robelo, in fact, is said to be the key to understanding the rapid reversal in the archdiocese’s position toward the revolution that occurred within a year of the Sandinista takeover. During the nine months he was a member of the Junta of National Reconstruction, Robelo sought to wrest the mantle of Sandinismo from the FSLN with an impassioned advocacy of “democratic socialism.” It was during this period that the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference adopted the supportive line toward socialism quoted by Kinzer: “If…socialism means, as it should mean, that the majority of the Nicaraguan people will rule…that there will be a transfer of power to the popular classes, then it will find support and help from the faith.” But as soon as Robelo resigned in April 1980 the bishops began to accept political guidance from CELAM, the conservative Latin American Bishops’ Conference, and turned against the practitioners of liberation theology in Nicaragua. Kinzer’s account of the August 1982 shooting of unarmed civilians that occurred in front of a Catholic school in Masaya, is again unsatisfying. In his telling, “gunfire broke out during a clash between students and Sandinista demonstrators, and one of the demonstrators was killed by a bullet whose origin remains uncertain.” True, up to a point: No one ever found out exactly who fired that particular bullet, one of many that flew. But it is known that all the gunfire came from the school, which had been occupied by armed youths who had pulled down the FSLN flag, and that all the resulting casualties were Sandinista supporters protesting the action. Though the degree of church complicity was never firmly established, the school’s principal, like Obando a Salesian priest, was eventually deported with but the faintest murmur of protest. Granted, not all the news is fit to print; but in those incidents the details Kinzer omits seem relevant. Why are they omitted? According to same of his colleagues in Managua, Kinzer has become so thoroughly disenchanted with the Sandinistas that he now gives them scant credence. That attitude reveals itself once more when he contrasts Obando’s political stance and judgment with those of the archbishop’s critics within the church: “There are some churchmen in Nicaragua, including many Jesuits, who find themselves capable of making leaps of political faith in order to support an audacious revolutionary process, however flawed…. Archbishop Obando, however, does not leap.” Obando’s agility The problem with that judgment—and the reason Kinzer’s portrayal needs reexamination even at this late date—is that it leaves the cardinal’s own position, and that of the forces making use of him, unexamined, a failure that obscures the political realities of Nicaragua and the religious-ethical issues at stake. For one example, Obando’s support of “dialogue” between the government and the appears to grant the anti-Sandinista guerrillas a political legitimacy and moral standing that few Nicaraguans outside the La Prensa-Cruz-Robelo circle believe they have earned. The cardinal’s arrival at that position may have required a leap of faith that would tax the agility of your average romantic Jesuit. The cardinal conveys his politics mostly by means of indirection. His silence about the constitutional process now under way angers some opposition party leaders who express their dissent from Frente policies, sometimes effectively, within the National Assembly. His homiletic jabs at the government are constructed out of obliquely applied biblical allusions whose point could easily be missed by an outsider but are readily understood by their anti-Sandinista audiences. Something as seemingly innocuous as a reminder of the biblical injunction to “love one another” is instinctively interpreted by the faithful as a denunciation of the Sandinistas for their “class hatreds”; a restatement of the commandment to forgive is understood as a condemnation of the government’s refusal to negotiate with the contras. But in principal Holy Week homily this year, Obando was more straightforward: “[W]e should convince ourselves that it is very difficult for the Nicaraguan people to get along with a power that strips man of his dignity, of his rights, and of his liberties.” La Prensa was so pleased that it published the full text not once, but twice, first on April 9 and then again on April 23. For the most powerful rhetorical moment of the homily, Obando turned to a surprising source: “We Christians should repeat the words of Thomas Jefferson every morning: ‘I’ve sworn before the altar of God eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny of the mind and of the heart of man.’” Jefferson, who viewed ecclesiastical structures as among the worst of such tyrannies, (“My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest”), must have turned in his grave. The apostle John, likewise recruited for a powerful rhetorical thrust at the Sandinistas, fared even worse than Jefferson. “St. John, in a key phrase,” intoned the archbishop, “affirms that only he who knows God respects human rights.” The reference was to I John 4:7-8 and the implication was that since the Sandinistas are nonbelievers they cannot possibly honor human rights. There are two problems here. One is that some Sandinistas and many of their strongest supporters are practicing Christians. The other is that the cardinal’s exegesis of I John 4:7-8 exactly reversed the meaning of the text: “[H]e who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love [RSV].” A key phrase indeed. The pope’s man To be sure, Obando was not made a cardinal for his theological prowess but for his political skills. In the pope’s eyes he was the right man in the right country at the right moment. For though the centers of conceptual development of liberation theology are to be found elsewhere in Latin America, it is Nicaragua that is at the cutting edge of its practical application. While Brazil’s Leonardo Boff, Peru’s Gustavo Gutiérrez, and Chile’s Pablo Richard rewrite theology, Nicaragua’s Cardenal brothers and many other priests are breaking all precedent by becoming integral participants in a radical social revolution. To a Polish pope who views the Sandinista experiment as a dangerous accommodation to Marxism, and liberation theology as a threat to church authority, this is a crisis that calls for decisive action, and Obando is the man of the hour. Obando has shown he knows how to run a tight ship in stormy seas. No matter how forcefully he may berate the Sandinistas for their unwillingness to negotiate with their adversaries, there is never any question of his engaging in dialogue with his own adversaries within the church. Priests and nuns subject to his jurisdiction who show sympathy for the revolution are scan transferred out of their parishes, or even out of the country. His greatest frustration is that many of the pro-Revolution priests and nuns belonging to the religious orders are beyond his direct reach, a fact he has lamented by saying that all would be well in Nicaragua if it weren’t for the orders. Playing to nativist sentiments, he points to the better educated, more independent-minded members of the orders as being “foreign,” and questions how they can genuinely know and understand the Nicaraguan people. Insiders say Obando also uses the Nicaraguan/foreign divide to maintain pressure on the four foreign-born bishops—U.S. Capuchins Salvador Schlaeffer and Pablo Schmidt of the Bluefields diocese on the Caribbean coast and Italian Franciscans Julian Barni of Leon and Carlos Santi of Matagalpa—to keep a low profile. That leaves Obando with six other bishops to contend with in setting the Nicaraguan church’s course. Of these six, none figures more prominently than Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega of Juigalpa, president of the Conference of Bishops. Though Vega differs little from Obando in theology or politics, his style is substantially less confrontational. When he agreed to give the invocation at the January 10 inauguration of the new government in Managua, he used the occasion to lecture the Sandinistas about the uses of power; Obando would never have even consented to participate. Then when Vega took his seat to observe the rest of the ceremony, managed to engage him in an extended conversation whose very occurrence scandalized right-wing sentiment. This matter of different leadership styles is important to understanding the domestic significance of Obando’s elevation to the rank of cardinal. By honoring Obando, John Paul II in effect endorsed his leadership in the crusade against the Sandinistas and their liberation theology allies. To appreciate how dramatic a sign the choice of Obando was, it is helpful to consider the regional alternatives. Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America, and traditionally viewed as the seat of the church (it was the colonial capital of the region). Since its impoverished—and overwhelmingly Catholic—Mayan majority is being subjected to one of the world’s most shocking reigns of terror and death, and since the country’s lone cardinal died not long ago, Guatemala City Archbishop Próspero Penados would be a logical candidate. Then there’s neighboring El Salvador, with the second highest population, similarly suffering the violence of death squads and counterinsurgency warfare. San Salvador Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas is viewed as politically neutral and is widely respected. If it weren’t for the Sandinistas, either Penados or Rivera y Damas would have been more likely choices. As it is, both are in the wrong countries. This is really the point in the selection of Obando: that the struggle over liberation theology in the Latin church takes precedence over the life-and-death dramas to which it responds; that orthodoxy in Nicaragua is a more pressing Vatican concern than systematic violence against the innocent in Guatemala and El Salvador. It is a perspective echoed by Bishop Vega late last year when in response to the killing of six children by contra mortar shells, he remarked that “to kill the soul is worse than to kill the body.” Why focus on the death of children when the Sandinistas and their priestly collaborators are destroying souls? (Vega was far less glib in his response to the wounding of fellow Bishop Salvador Schlaeffer by contra forces in April, describing the attack as “a mistake that leaves us perplexed”—El Nuevo Diario, April 17.) That is why Archbishop Alfonso López Trujillo of Medellín—who unsuccessfully tried to stem the tide of liberation theology at the Puebla Conference—was made cardinal in 1983. And why last year’s signal to Latin America as a whole on the dangers of liberation theology is being supplemented by this year’s signal to the Central American crucible where theology is being translated into theopraxis. The announcement came as no surprise to the liberationist priests and nuns who are among its prime targets. They have known all along that they were venturing into forbidden territory by taking part in a revolution, and that the forces of orthodoxy would use all the means at their disposal to try to halt the innovation lest it become established and be repeated elsewhere. They had even heard of the impending appointment as early as last October, as Obando’s forces marshaled support for the move among conservative clerics. They were, however, caught off guard by the timing of the announcement, which immediately followed the April vote in the U.S. House of Representatives refusing aid to the contras. Yet they took solace in the humor of a saying that soon began making the rounds of Managua: “Aqui nunca podemos alegrarnos: después de l as elecciones, el pájaro negro; despues del triunfo en el congreso, el pájaro rojo” (“We can never rejoice here: After the elections there was the black bird [the U.S. SR-71 supersonic spy plane]; now after the triumph in the Congress, it’s the red bird!”)