Sandinista President Daniel Ortega had Msgr. Sommertag, the apostolic nuncio, expelled. Ortega, who has called the Nicaraguan bishops “coup mongers,” also accuses them of being accomplices of internal forces and international groups that he says are operating in Nicaragua to overthrow him.
“The Holy See expressed great surprise and regret at the communication received from the Government of Nicaragua, which has decided to withdraw the approval of Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, Apostolic Nuncio in Managua since 2018, that requires him to leave the country immediately after the notification of the measure,” stated in a press release from the Holy See Press Office.
Last Monday, the apostolic nunciature in Nicaragua reported that its representative in Managua, Archbishop Sommertag, who is of Polish descent, was “absent from the country,” and that the secretary, Msgr. Marcel Mbaye Diouf, remained in charge, without specifying the reasons.
The Holy See stressed that “such a measure seems incomprehensible because in the course of his mission Archbishop Sommertag worked with profound dedication for the good of the Church and the Nicaraguan people, especially the most vulnerable.”
The statement recalled “his participation as a witness and accompanying the national dialogue between the government and the political opposition, with a view to reconciliation in the country and the release of political prisoners.”
In conclusion, the statement notes, that “While the Holy See is convinced that such a grave and unjustified unilateral measure does not reflect the feelings of the deeply Christian people of Nicaragua, it wishes to reaffirm its full confidence in the papal representative.”
The nuncio arrived in Managua in 2018, a year in which anti-government protests rocked the country and sparked a crackdown by President Daniel Ortega’s regime.
On July 30, 2019, the Ortega government closed the negotiations it was holding with the Civic Alliance to find a way out of the crisis that the country has been experiencing since April 2018, despite calls from the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union, the Nicaraguan bishops, the army, and other sectors.
Ortega, who was re-elected in last November’s elections amid questions of legitimacy and while his main rivals were in prison, began his campaign on October 4 by calling the Nicaraguan bishops who played the role of mediators, “terrorists.”
The Vatican on Saturday attributed to the Nicaraguan government the expulsion of the Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua, Msgr. Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, whose work it defended and considered it a “grave and unjustified” decision.