The Auxiliary Bishop of Managua (Nicaragua), Mons. Silvio Báez, in exile for some years, stated in his homily at Sunday Mass. He says that “dictators claim to love God, while they themselves take their place believing themselves to be gods.”
This was indicated by the Prelate in the Eucharist that he presided over yesterday at Saint Agatha Church, in the Sweetwater neighborhood, where many Nicaraguans live, in the city of Miami (United States).
Bishop Báez, who has always expressed himself critically about Daniel Ortega’s regime in Nicaragua, also pointed out that dictators “enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, disrespect the rights and freedoms of people and oppress their people, and they talk about God, and they say they believe in God and love God.”
“That ‘god’ that the dictators of our people speak of is not the true God, who cannot be loved if we do not love if we do not respect human beings,” he continued.
The Bishop then denounced: “Those who exploit the poor and oppress people not only do not know or love God but — as Pope Francis said this morning at the closing Mass of the Synod in Rome — they commit a great sin: They corrode fraternity and devastate society.”
In fact, during the final Mass of the Synod of Synodality that took place from October 4 to 29 in Rome, the Holy Father stated: “It is a grave sin to exploit the weakest, a grave sin that corrodes fraternity and devastates society”.
In his homily in Miami, the Auxiliary Bishop of Managua encouraged “loving God and our neighbors always and everywhere, also in society,” and recalled that love can be spousal, family, fraternal and friendly.
“Love also has a social and political dimension. That is why tyrants are liars who, cynically, fill their mouths by invoking and talking about God, and even describing their crimes, illegalities and acts of corruption as divine blessings. There are terrorists who kill in the name of God,” warned the Nicaraguan Prelate.
Bishop Báez also pointed out that “it may sound trite to talk about love, but for Jesus knowing how to love is the only thing necessary in life, the only thing that matters: loving God and loving your neighbor.”
“Behind so many dissatisfactions and depressions that we suffer there are great voids of love,” he warned, and specified that in many of the problems that people have “there is a scandalous lack of love for God and neighbor.”
One day before, on Saturday, October 28, a group of young people held a sit-in at the Nicaraguan Consulate in Miami, asking for the freedom of Mons. Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa, imprisoned since February in Managua, accused of “treason to the homeland” and unjustly sentenced by the dictatorship to 26 years and 4 months in prison.