Jesuits’ superior general condemns seizure of university by Nicaragua dictatorship

Ary Waldir Ramos Díaz   By Ary Waldir Ramos Díaz for CNA

August 18, 2023 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 3 Print

 

The economic sciences building of the Central American University (UCA) in Nicaragua. / Credit: Courtesy of the Jesuits Central America

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 18, 2023 / 16:30 pm (CNA).

The superior general of the Jesuits, Father Arturo Sosa, condemned the confiscation this week of the Central American University (UCA) by the Daniel Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua, denouncing the measure as “unjust” and detrimental to the country.

The expropriation of the assets of the UCA, considered one of the main private educational institutions in the country and whose closure has left more than 9,500 students without access to education, was strongly criticized both nationally and internationally.

Sosa expressed his consternation over the situation in a letter also posted on X addressed to the provincial curia of Central America in San Salvador, headed by Father José Domingo Cuesta, SJ. In his statement, issued on Aug. 17 from Rome, Sosa expressed his “great surprise and greater pain for the consequences for the youth and for the entire people of Nicaragua.”

The superior general of the Jesuits denounced the confiscation and expressed his solidarity with the UCA, its directors, and its teaching and administrative staff.

“The accusations made against the UCA are totally false and without any foundation,” Sosa said.

“Furthermore, the right to legitimate defense has been denied. A fair trial, with impartial justice, would bring to light the truth of the entire plot that the government has executed against the UCA since the 2018 youth protests, as well as against many other works of the Catholic Church and thousands of civil society institutions, in order to suffocate, close, or appropriate them,” he pointed out.

Sosa noted that the university has been a beacon of social commitment, promoting the right to free thought and quality education for all.

The Jesuit superior general said the measures against the UCA are a manifestation of the climate of violence and insecurity that has been established in the country.

“With similar slanders, they have also trampled on the rights of so many people, their reputation, their lives, and their property,” he said.

Besides condemning the injustice suffered by the UCA, Sosa also called for reconciliation and dialogue.

“I join the demand for this judicial measure against the UCA to be reversed and corrected, so that the government’s aggression against it and its members cease, so that paths of dialogue based on truth, freedom, and the right to quality of education for the youth and for all the people of Nicaragua be opened.”

In his letter, Sosa quoted the 36th General Congregation (GC36) of the society, which stressed the importance of remaining steadfast in the search for a better world and dedicated to “those who work in marginal situations and persecution to defend the truth.”

“Even in times when we face great challenges and seeming defeats, we continue to dream of helping to recreate a different world, because we have met ‘he who has the power to do all things incomparably better than we can ask or think,’” the GC36 document states.

The UCA, founded in 1960 by the Jesuits, has faced harassment and repression since the anti-government protests in 2018. The confiscation order has been seen as part of a larger pattern of government oppression that has also affected other Catholic institutions and critical voices.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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The modern miracle of Fatima

May 13, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
Image of Our Lady of Fatima in Lisbon’s cathedral. / Kate Veik/CNA

Fatima, Portugal, May 13, 2022 / 03:00 am (CNA).

While men in the trenches of World War I faced chemical gasses and industrialized weaponry that wrought unprecedented human carnage, an Angel of Peace appeared with a message.

“Do not be afraid. I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me: My God I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You,” the angel told three children in rural Portugal in that first of several supernatural encounters that would take place over the course of 1916 and 1917.

When the Virgin Mary appeared to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco on May 13, 1917, she requested, “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.”

The Great War did come to an end in 1918, but the story and secrets of Fatima continued to unfold after the first world war until the fall of Communism in 1989. The Virgin Mary entered into the bloodiest century in human history with a message of peace and prayer.

In many ways the events at Fatima encapsulate the history of the 20th century, and in the long history of the Church, they will be remembered for their deep connections to the most important milestones of the last century.

Today a piece of the Berlin Wall stands in the Fatima square as a permanent monument to the apparition’s connection to 1989. The Bolsheviks’ October Revolution took place the same year as Fatima’s “Miracle of the Sun,” and the Virgin Mary specifically requested that the pope consecrate Russia to Mary, in union with the bishops of the world.

In Fatima’s museum, there is a rosary made from pieces of the Berlin Wall, a gift made by a Portuguese emigrant on May 13, 1991. There is also the ring that Pope John Paul II donated to Our Lady of Fatima in gratitude for her protection during the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981, a date that coincided with the anniversary of the Fatima apparitions. The ring had a special meaning to the pope; Cardinal Stephen Wszynski had given it to him at the beginning of his papacy in 1978. The pope also offered the bullet from the assassination attempt, which fit perfectly into Our Lady of Fatima’s crown.

World War II was also predicted by Our Lady of Fatima.

“God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI,” recorded Lucia in her third memoir.

“Fatima is undoubtedly the most prophetic of modern apparitions. The first and second parts of the ‘secret’ . . . refer especially to the frightening vision of hell, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Second World War, and finally the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism,” wrote the former Secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith Tarcisio Bertone.

Lucia dos Santos, the principal Fatima visionary died in 2005. Her niece, Maria dos Anjos, is still living across the street from Lucia’s little house in Fatima. Now 98 years old, Anjos’ life has spanned all but three years of Fatima’s modern history.

“When she visited us Lucia always said ‘Pray the rosary every day. That is what Our Lady asked,” Anjos told CNA.

Anjos also told CNA how much the city of Fatima has changed in her lifetime. Life across Europe has changed completely since 1917, she said. For one thing, children no longer work as shepherds.

Saints Jacinta and Francisco Marto did not travel far within their short lifetimes. They lived simple, austere, and faithful lives. Both died of the Spanish flu pandemic that killed between 50 and 100 million people in the early 20th century.

In perhaps the most poignant symbol of a changing world, what was once the pasture of poor shepherds is now an international pilgrimage destination where people from South Korea, India, Australia, and all over the world come together seeking the sacred.

This article was originally published on CNA on July 18, 2018. Maria dos Anjos is now 102 years old.

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3 Comments

    • Oh how the Jesuits fought for the Leftist movements in Nicaragua, in the past and up to the present. For the people! Bad fruit. The old Frankenstein syndrome politically. The Jebbies are just too proud to learn. Some of life’s ironies.

      Reply

  2. Deacon above – Sounds harsh but I think it’s right.
    Ernesto Cardenal, his brother, a Jesuit, liberation theology and all that.

    Reply

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