WHITE HOUSE DIGEST: WHAT THE CENTRAL AMERICAN BISHOPS SAY ABOUT CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R001400130037-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 63
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 5, 2008
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: October 5, 1984
• Content Type: REPORT

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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
5 OCT 1984
Central Intelligence Agency
Executive Secretary
STAT
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. ROBERT M. KIMMITT
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
SUBJECT: White House Digest: "What the Central American
Bishops Say About Central America"
Attached is a copy of the subject Digest, annotated with
Department change recommendations. The changes in numbers
reflect the upper limit of the most recent DIA information.
cc: Mr. Charles Hill
Executive Secretary
Department of State
W09203
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NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WAS 4,NGTON. D.C. solos
October 2, 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. CHARLES HILL
Executive Secretary
Department of State
COL R.J. AFFOURTIT
Executive Secretary
Department of Defense
6179 add on
STAT
Executive Secretary
Central Intelligence Agency
SUBJECT: white House Digest: 'What the Central
Americans Bishops Say About Central America-
The attached White House Digest has been reviewed/cleared
by your agency. It incorporates changes suggested by your
agency. Please provide final comments for review/clearance
by October 9, 1984.
%kit - I(Aftw;-
Robert M. P immitt "
Executive Secretary
attachments
White House Digest
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WHAT CENTRAL AMERICAN BISHOPS SAY ABOUT CENTRAL AMERICA
We want to state clearly that this government
is totalitarian. ... We are dealing with a
government that is an enemy of the Church.
Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo
Managua, Nicaragua
11 July 1984
There were still in the world men and women
of good will who did not believe a
totalitarian regime had enthroned itself in
Nicaragua. Now those people know the truth.
Archbishop Roman Arrieta
San Jose, Costa Rica
11 July 1984
If the Salvadoran guerrillas had popular
support, they would already have won by now.
r* Archbishop Arturo Rivas y Damas
Archbishop of an Salvador
March 22, 1983
Critics of Administration policies in Central America often
cloak their criticisms by trying to wrap them in the mantle of
the Catholic Church. The authority of the Church lends credibil-
ity to their arguments and makes them seem less partisan and more
constructive.
However, the impression that the Chu hierarchy in Central
America is totally opposed to O.S. li is incorrect. In fact,
Nicaraguan and Salvadoran Bishops increasingly
critical..of the:Sandinista regime nd the Salvadoran guerrillas.
As anyone familiar with the area realizes, the position of
the Catholic Church in all of Latin America has undergone pro-
found changes in the last twenty years. One aspect of Church
teaching that has not changed, however, is the fundamental
concern for the human rights of the people.
It is for this reason that extremes of both the right and
the left have been opposed by the Bishops of El Salvador and
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Salvador, while condemning the abuses of both right and left wing
death squads. They have deplored the movement towards Marxism-
Leninism in Nicaragua.
Nicaragua
Casual observers of the Sandinista Revolution are confused
by the initial support for the Revolution by Archbishop Miguel
Obando y Bravo, since he is now opposed to the Sandinista
dictatorship. Obando y Bravo had always been in the forefront of
opposition to Somoza. As early as 1974, he and his brother
Bishops condemned the Somoza regime, saying in an important
Pastoral Letter:
The 'social order' cannot therefore consist of a rigid
and worn out mechanism, which denies represses or
monopolizes the exercise of the rights of a dominating
faction. And more, even when an ideological group system
might be preferred or chosen among others, this choice, and
prevalence, does not give it the right to abolish or exclude
other possible options and the search for new expressions of
the personal aspirations of a group of people.'
Obando y Bravo also mediated two hostage seizures by the
Sandinistas, in 1974 and 1978. Somoza's memoirs are filled with
invective against the Archbishop, whom he once called "Comandante
Obando." Now the Sandinistas are trying to link him with the
deposed dictator.
The dedication of the-Archbishop to human rights has not
changed. In 1979, Obando_y*bravo shared the hopes of many of his
countrymen that the Somoza dictatorship would be replaced by a
democratic regime. Like the U.S., the Archbishop tried his best
to move the regime in that direction. In fact, one of the first
public events of the Sandinista era was a victory Mass celebrated
by Obando y Bravo.
After five years, however, these high hopes have soured.
The Sandinistas have failed to live up to the promises they made
to the Organization of American States and instead have suspended
most human rights, including freedom of religion. Therefore,
consistent in his concern for the human rights of the people of
Nicaragua, the Archbishop condemns Sandinista violations.
Many North .Americana. however, have yet to realise the
changes that have taken place in Nicaragua since 1979. Because
they donor zealise:::the.-;totalitarian direction of the
Sandinistas:; mere ars-ea os;.Catholic Bishops :,in' , the U.S. who
are'still support ive,of,theNicaraguan junta.
Bishop Obando was recently asked how the North American
Catholic Church could help him. Be replied:
The first thing that the North American Church needs
is good information. They receive a lot of information from
the Popular Church and the Sandinistas -- which is the same
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thing. The government here manipulates all the groups that
come. Jnd any letter we send to the Bishops never arrives
there.'
The Catholic Church has traditionally rejected Marxism
because it is a man-centered ideology. The April 1984 Easter
Sunday Pastoral Letter on Reconciliation reiterated this re-
jections
'Materialistic concepts of mankind distort the person
and teachings of Christ, reduce man to merely physical terms
without taking account of his spiritual nature, so he
remains subject to physical forces called the 'dialectics of
history.' And'man, alienated from God and himself, becomes
disoriented, without moral and religious refere$ce points,
without a higher nature, insecure and violent.'
Based on this general discomfort with Marxist regimes, the
hierarchy has rejected the Marxism-Leninism of the Sandinista
government. Bishop Antonio Vega, President of the Nicaraguan
Bishops' Conference, commented on Sandinismo in March 1983:
'The Sandinista government through ita ideology and
method is a Marxist-Leninist government.... In its daily
praxis the government does not act in an exclusively
totalitarian manner, but [there is] total domination of the
people.'
A source of confusion to observers familiar with the poor
relations between the Sandinistas and the Catholic Church is the
presence of five Roman Catholic priests on the ruling junta.
They had been permitted..to'continue in these posts on a pro-
visional basis, but the Vatican recently arrived at a final
decision on their case and required the priests to resign their
political positions.
The Vatican press office released a statement concerning
priests who hold political positions on August 10. It cited
Canon 285,3 of the new Code of Canon Law, which reads:
'It is prohibited for clergymen to assume public
offices which entail participation in the exercising of
civil government.'
The statement from the Holy See continued with this comment
on the circumstances. in Iiicaragua:
'The Canon cited enunciates as a law of the Church the
categorical:,,prohibition, according to which clerics cannot
?:nor~:retain the ststed'pnblic ?offices
accept , and this
supersedes any situation or any judgement which may have
already existed.!
The Catholic hierarchy cited this 'categorical prohibition'
against priests holding public office. Monsignor Antonio Vega
added a condemnation of the Sandinista government itself:
'The priests have been called to end their association
with the government, and if they do not accept this, they
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end their association with Jesus. This government is
anti-Christian. It is a system of Marxist-Leninib
materialism and has nothing to do with religion."'
The priests who now participate in the Sandinista dictator-
ship are: Miguel D'Escoto, a Maryknoll priest and Sandinista
Foreign Minister; Ernesto Cardenal, a Trappist monk who is
Minister of Culture; his cousin Fernando Cardenal, a Jesuit
priest who was named Nicaralyan minister of education on July 13;
and Father Edgard Parrales.
Bishop Vega continued his attacks upon totalitarianism in a
Mass held on May 1, 1984 at the request of an anti-Sandinista
labor organization.' His sermon attacked governments run 'bY2a
few individuals who want to dominate and enslave the rest.'
One of the methods of extending totalitarianism that partic-
ularly concerns the Bishops is government intrusion into Catholic
education. Specifically, Catholics are concerned about atheistic
Marxist indoctrination becoming part of the curriculum.
Easter Pastoral Letter states, under the heading of 'A Belliger-
ent Situation':
'A materialistic and atheistic educational system is
undermining the consciences of our children.'
Bishop Vega has also highlighted the link between totali-
tarianism and lack of respect for human rights. He said:
"[There is submission to] a totalitarian and
materialistic itSate which at the same time does not respect
human rights.'
At the same time that the Bishops condemn human rights
abuses by the Sandinistas, they reject the excuse for intervention, in the form of alleged O.S. support
opponents of the regime, known as the Freedom Fighters, justifies
harsh methods. The Easter Pastoral Letter points out:
'It is dishonest to constantly blame internal
aggression and violence on foreign aggression. It is
useless to blame the evil past for everything without
recognizing the problems of the present.'
The Easter-Pastoral also made veiled reference to the
superpower. conflict, as it effects the people of Nicaragua. in a
passage-which--does not same either the O.S. or the Soviet Union,
the letter said the following:
'Foreign.powers take advantage of our situation to
encouragIe.~aconomia and ideological exploration. They see us
as support for their power, without respect for our persons,
our history, our culture, and our right to decide our own
destiny.'
Some observers see in this a reference to criticism by
individual church leaders of the Sandinistas' ties to Communist
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1to 000
14 is is a logical assumption,
countries, especially
since there are about r&* _ 0_0 .~ Cubans in the country.
?The Catholic Church hierarchy has serious doubts about the
It a