Nicaragua proposes suspending Vatican ties after comments

By GABRIELA SELSER and FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaragua ’s government says it has proposed suspending relations with the Vatican days after Pope Francis compared President Daniel Ortega’s administration to a communist or Nazi dictatorship amid a crackdown on the Catholic Church in the country. Relations between the church and the Nicaraguan government have been deteriorating since 2018, when authorities violently repressed antigovernment protests. Some Catholic leaders gave protesters shelter in their churches and the church later tried to act as a mediator between the regime and the opposition. Ortega branded Catholic figures he saw as sympathetic to the opposition as “terrorists” who had backed efforts to overthrow him.