Introduction: Episcopal responses to autocracy in Latin America
In what conditions are national episcopates in Latin America likely to confront autocratic regimes by denouncing state repression and/or supporting social movements? In what conditions are bishops positioned to mediate state-society conflicts?
Many scholars have analyzed the contentious episcopal responses to autocracy in Latin America during the Cold War decades of the 1960s–1980s (Gill, Reference Gill1998; Mainwaring, Reference Mainwaring1986; Mainwaring and Wilde, Reference Mainwaring, Wilde, Mainwaring and Wilde1989; Smith, Reference Smith1982; Smith, Reference Smith1991). From the 1990s to the 2000s, denunciations of state power were rare as national episcopates supported democratic processes and newly elected governments (Hagopian, Reference Hagopian2009; Mainwaring and Scully, Reference Mainwaring and Scully2003). Across the 2010s and 2020s, state-society conflicts in Latin America multiplied as autocratic rule returned to several countries. Global trends presage the continuing spread of authoritarianism (Kendall-Taylor et al., Reference Kendall-Taylor, Frantz and Wright2017), raising the prospect of episcopal conferences taking confrontational roles in dynamics reminiscent of the Cold War.
This article offers a structural account of episcopal responses to autocracy through comparative analysis of church-state relations and pastoral letters published in Cuba and Nicaragua during critical junctures from the Cold War to the first half of the 2020s. The article argues that the likelihood that national episcopates will confront autocratic regimes, and their corresponding ability to mediate conflicts, is deeply associated with structural conditions—specifically, the manner in which executive authority is institutionalized in autocratic regimes and the geopolitical relationships with great powers and regional powers that support or oppose those regimes.Footnote 1
The personalization of executive authority, combined with demonstrations of repressive violence against political opponents, increases the likelihood that episcopal confrontation becomes sharp. Personalization also reduces opportunities for mediation, as autocratic rulers resist compromising aspects of their authority in mediation processes. Moreover, United States punitive measures against regimes dependent on military and economic aid from abroad can shift bishops into confrontational roles. Latin American regimes seeking to stabilize their authority following state-society conflicts through alliances with geopolitical adversaries of the United States can preclude opportunities for bishops to mediate conflicts. Conversely, the depersonalization of authority and the necessity to alleviate United States pressure opens the space that makes episcopal mediation efforts possible.
These arguments are illustrated in the divergent episcopal responses to state repression of protests in Cuba in 2021 and Nicaragua in 2018. After widespread arrests, Cuba’s bishops maintained a neutral stance, following from efforts to mediate rapprochement between Cuba and the United States while the Cuban government was depersonalizing authority in the 2010s. In contrast, Nicaragua’s bishops denounced the violent tactics of the personalizing regime of Daniel Ortega and suffered repression amid increased hostility between Nicaragua and the United States.
Church-state relations here refers to the formal interactions between government officials and the national episcopates representing the Catholic Church in different political systems (Gill, Reference Gill1998, 9; Hagopian, Reference Hagopian2009, 4; Hehir, Reference Hehir, Byrnes and Katzenstein2006, 108). During state-society conflicts, bishops face the dilemma of asserting political positions while navigating relationships with government officials and civil society representatives (Mainwaring, Reference Mainwaring, Wilde, Mainwaring and Wilde1989, 21–22; Smith, Reference Smith1982, 11). Pastoral letters provide a record of episcopal statements directed at multiple audiences, including social, state, and international actors, at times opposing such actors through denunciations or positioning the church for mediation (Gill, Reference Gill1998, 5–6). In authoritarian contexts, pastoral letters can become focal points for opposition when public criticism is censored, an experience shared by episcopal conferences in Cuba and Nicaragua.Footnote 2
Research design: case selection, sources, and methodology
Analyses of the Catholic Church in Latin America are often single-country narratives that emphasize the unique characteristics of each national experience. Scholarship on Cuba has focused on the patterns of church-state confrontation following the 1959 Cuban Revolution that produced a weakened church with severe limits on traditional church capacities (Alonso Tejada, Reference Alonso Tejada1994; Crahan, Reference Crahan1979; Kirk, Reference Kirk1989; Kuivala, Reference Kuivala2019; Uría, Reference Uría2011). Scholarship on the church in Nicaragua largely centers on the divisions that emerged following the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, as the episcopate opposed the new government and the grassroots “popular church” supported the revolutionary process (Crahan, Reference Crahan, Mainwaring and Wilde1989; Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990; Mulligan, Reference Mulligan1991; Williams, Reference Williams, Mainwaring and Wilde1989b).
Comparisons of national churches can illustrate similarities and differences in episcopal behavior in distinct political contexts, creating a basis for argumentation on likely patterns of church-state interaction (Gill, Reference Gill2001; Hehir, Reference Hehir, Byrnes and Katzenstein2006, 98; Fleet and Smith, Reference Fleet and Smith1997; Williams, Reference Williams1989a). Several factors make Cuba and Nicaragua appropriate for comparative analysis, including the size of each church: the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (Conferencia Episcopal de Nicaragua, CEN) has nine dioceses and one archdiocese, and the Conference of Cuban Catholic Bishops (Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Cuba, COCC) has ten dioceses and three archdioceses (as opposed to the hundreds of bishops and dioceses in Brazil). Each country experienced social revolutions during the Cold War, as peasant-based guerrilla armies overthrew dictatorships that lost United States support (Wickham-Crowley, Reference Wickham-Crowley1992, 5–8, 312). Revolutionary takeovers forced the church to deal with the ideological challenge of socialism and the state to deal with intensified United States pressure, as different types of autocracy took shape in subsequent decades in each country.
This article incorporates secondary historical work by scholars on Cuba and Nicaragua with an extensive study of pastoral letters. The author reviewed over 300 letters and documents published by bishops in Cuba and Nicaragua from 1958 to 2023, with selections referenced explicitly for their political content.Footnote 3 Following Collier (Reference Collier2011) and van Meegdenburg (Reference van Meegdenburg, Mello and Ostermann2023), the article utilizes process tracing to examine the sequence of events that link the structural characteristics of a regime’s authority and geopolitical alignments to the episcopal responses expressed in pastoral letters across multiple historical periods in each case. While investigating patterns of causation between the proposed variables, process tracing also considers how the agency of actors embedded in distinct cultural contexts may support or counteract the expected responses and outcomes (van Meegdenburg, Reference van Meegdenburg, Mello and Ostermann2023, 405, 413).Footnote 4 While the limited set of cases included here precludes overgeneralization and lacks the rich description of single-narrative accounts, the conclusion discusses how comparisons of Cuba and Nicaragua can be applied to additional cases of national episcopates encountering contemporary varieties of autocracy in Latin America.
Structural accounts of church-state relations in Latin America
This article builds on the institutional and ideational approaches that examined episcopal responses to autocracy in Latin America during the Cold War, beginning with the period marked by the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the Second Vatican Council of 1962–65. Before this time, episcopal accommodation of autocratic rule was routine. Smith (Reference Smith1982) argued that confrontational responses, including the Chilean episcopate’s opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship, were motivated by institutional self-defense: “Prophetic denunciations of an authoritarian state by Catholic bishops normally do not occur until the core interests of the Church are threatened” (Smith, Reference Smith1982, 312, 345). Scholars adopting ideational approaches emphasized discursive changes resulting from Vatican II: in Latin America, the advent of liberation theology and the episcopal conferences at Medellín in 1968 and Puebla in 1979 demonstrated how the church rapidly transformed to confront dictatorship and promote human rights (Mainwaring, Reference Mainwaring1986; Levine, Reference Levine1986, 10–11).Footnote 5 Mainwaring (Reference Mainwaring, Wilde, Mainwaring and Wilde1989) adopted elements of each approach to argue that the combination of Vatican II reforms and the experience of right-wing authoritarian rule explained the emergence of progressive church action in Latin America (15).
Geddes (Reference Geddes1999) provides a typology of autocratic regimes permitting comparison beyond the left- and right-wing ideological dichotomy that characterized the Cold War. Geddes (Reference Geddes1999) categorizes autocracies by the locus of control over policy, appointments, and the security apparatus: in military regimes, officers decide who rules and makes state policy; in dominant-party regimes, a single party organization controls policy, political offices, and security appointments; and in personalist regimes, control over policy and the security apparatus depends on the discretion of a single leader (121–122). Geddes et al. (Reference Geddes, Wright and Frantz2018) posit that amalgams of such regimes exist; what distinguishes “personalist” regimes is that neither the military nor the party operates independently of the leader, who exercises executive power with little restraint. The combination of a singular leader and dominant-party often found in revolutionary states can be characterized as “personalist, dominant-party” when the leader rules with undefined limits while committed to a party organization and ideology.
This typology captures a spectrum of regimes that emerged in Cuba and Nicaragua from the Cold War to the 2020s, together with a process accounting for shifting power dynamics between regimes: “personalization” is defined by Frantz et al. (Reference Frantz, Kendall-Taylor, Wright and Xu2019) as the process of concentrating power in the hands of a single leader (373). Levels of personalization, based not on the charisma but on the authority of the leader, vary within regimes over time (Hadenius and Teorell, Reference Hadenius and Teorell2007); movement from a personalist to a dominant-party regime (“depersonalization”) involves the state losing reliance on a single leader while retaining the party bureaucracy, perhaps with limited economic pluralism. Conversely, a dominant-party or military regime may succumb to increasing control by an individual ruler; when the party bureaucracy or officer corps loses authority, dynastic leadership can emerge atop a personalized staff available for mobilization in violent paramilitary groups to sustain the regime.Footnote 6
Frantz et al. (Reference Frantz, Kendall-Taylor, Wright and Xu2019) find that the process of concentrating power in the hands of a single ruler increases reliance on repressive violence (372–373), complementing the finding of Davenport (Reference Davenport2007) that dominant-party regimes repress less than other forms of autocracy. It follows that instances of personalization accompanied by repressive violence present perilous decisions for bishops to accommodate or confront the regime, especially when risking repression of religious activities.
Episcopal conferences address particular national realities, at times abiding by or challenging the policies of governments, though conflicts may exist among individual bishops within the conference and between the hierarchy and the communities of priests and laypeople at the local level (Mainwaring, Reference Mainwaring1986, 11–13). The argument advanced here is that church-state relationships are likely to become confrontational when personalist regimes employ repressive violence on political opponents and/or provoke intensified United States pressure.
Shifting geopolitical alignments can be decisive for regime outcomes in highly dependent states. Geddes (Reference Geddes1999) describes “exogenous shocks” as developments that impede the economic performance and coercive capacities of autocratic regimes (138). In the countries of Central America and the Caribbean, United States economic and military pressure has historically been utilized to both support and oppose autocratic regimes. However, competitive geopolitics offers opportunities to autocracies seeking alternate alignments; while the loss of international support can cause regime collapse and increase social mobilization, new alliances can aid the capacity and will of autocracies to use violent repression (Bellin, Reference Bellin2004, 30).
The potential to ease international pressures consequently creates conditions for church mediation; institutional and cultural ties between the United States and the Vatican make national episcopates in Latin America potential diplomatic conduits between the United States and autocratic regimes. When examining episcopal efforts to mediate conflicts, the basic insight of the two-level approach recognizes that negotiators strive to reconcile domestic and international imperatives simultaneously as external pressures reverberate in the domestic arena (Putnam, Reference Putnam1988, 460). Episcopal mediation in part involves positioning the church in a neutral role through shifting domestic and international environments; however, the personalization of regime authority, violent state repression, and alliances that provide support to autocratic regimes are structural factors that limit opportunities for church mediation.
Table 1 collects structural indicators for six periods representing critical junctures of state-society conflict and regime transition in Cuba and Nicaragua.Footnote 7 The following sections analyze these periods in the historical sequence presented in Table 1.
Structural conditions and episcopal responses
Table 1. Long description
The table has six rows and five columns. The columns are labeled Historical period, Regime type, Repression and opponents, Geopolitical context, and Episcopal response. The rows are as follows: Row 1: Historical period, Cuba, 1959-1969; Regime type, Personalist, dominant-party; Repression and opponents, New state monopoly, capital justice and counter-insurgency; armed and unarmed opponents; Geopolitical context, USA intervention and sanctions; USSR increases support; Episcopal response, Confrontation; state repression of the church followed by church accommodation of the state. Row 2: Historical period, Nicaragua, 1972-1979; Regime type, Personalist; Repression and opponents, Violent repression, counter-insurgency; armed and unarmed opponents; Geopolitical context, USA withdraws support; Episcopal response, Confrontation and failed attempt at mediation; church supports revolutionary transition. Row 3: Historical period, Nicaragua, 1979-1990; Regime type, Dominant-party; Repression and opponents, New state monopoly, counter-insurgency; armed opponents; Geopolitical context, USA intervention and sanctions; moderate USSR support; Episcopal response, Confrontation followed by successful mediation; church supports electoral transition. Row 4: Historical period, Cuba, 1993-2003; Regime type, Personalist, dominant-party; Repression and opponents, Arrests and imprisonment; unarmed opponents; Geopolitical context, USA increases sanctions; loss of USSR followed by Venezuela support; Episcopal response, Moderate confrontation followed by church neutrality and advocacy of dialogue. Row 5: Historical period, Cuba, 2010-2025; Regime type, Dominant-party; Repression and opponents, Arrests and imprisonment; unarmed opponents; Geopolitical context, USA-Cuba normalization followed by increased USA sanctions; Episcopal response, Successful mediation subject to shifting USA policy; church accommodation of the state. Row 6: Historical period, Nicaragua, 2011-2024; Regime type, Personalist; Repression and opponents, Violent repression of popular protests; unarmed opponents; Geopolitical context, USA implements targeted sanctions; Russia and China increase support; Episcopal response, Failed attempt at mediation leads to confrontation; state repression of the church.
Cuba’s Castro regime (1959–1969): episcopal confrontation and state repression
The decimation of church personnel and institutional resources in Cuba from 1959 to 1969 illustrates the severe repressive consequences that can result from episcopal confrontation of a personalist regime, setting a baseline pattern comparable to subsequent periods in Cuba and Nicaragua.Footnote 8 Fidel Castro overthrew the dictatorship of General Fulgencio Batista in 1959, following two years of guerrilla warfare and widespread urban mobilization against Batista’s attempt to violently suppress the rebellion (Wickham-Crowley, Reference Wickham-Crowley1992, 170–173). The new revolutionary regime was based on personalist, dominant-party rule: authority over the army and political organizations was vested in Fidel Castro, and former officials in Batista’s security apparatus were executed. With mass popular support, Cuba’s economy, social services, and media were nationalized. A shift in alignment to the Soviet Union was met with a United States blockade on trade and diplomacy (Pérez-Stable, Reference Pérez-Stable2011, 82–94). After the regime adopted socialist ideology, revolutionary political organizations were consolidated to form the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in 1965.
Episcopal response
Cuba’s bishops long supported the status quo and rarely spoke as one body to challenge Batista’s repression.Footnote 9 Archbishop Enrique Pérez Serantes crafted pastoral letters that spotlighted the murder of activists earlier than the more conservative episcopate.Footnote 10 In 1959, after expressing confidence that democracy would return to Cuba, the archbishop published admonitions against the executions and cries of “paredón” (“to the wall”) surrounding the trials of Batista’s staff.Footnote 11
At the inception of the Cold War, Pope Pius XII prohibited collaboration between the Catholic Church and communist states (Hehir, Reference Hehir, Byrnes and Katzenstein2006, 102–103). The COCC likewise took an unequivocal stance against communism. In mid-1960, Cuba’s burgeoning alignment with the Soviet Union sparked a series of pastoral letters that set the COCC in direct opposition to the revolutionary government: a collective letter in August 1960 asserted that “Catholicism and Communism answer to two conceptions of man and the world that are completely opposed and impossible to reconcile…In fact, we condemn Communism”; the bishops referred to the government as a “dictatorial regime” seeking “total control of the State” and proclaimed the church will always side with the poor but never with communism.Footnote 12
As the bishops amplified their confrontational rhetoric, denunciations of the church as a counterrevolutionary institution permeated Fidel Castro’s speeches (Guerra, Reference Guerra2012). Archbishop Pérez Serantes kept the American consul informed of plans for new letters; American officials considered the August letter a watershed and regarded the bishops as potential rallying points for opposition to Castro (Uría, Reference Uría2011, 376–448). The August letter also initiated a wave of violence against Catholics: Thompson (Reference Thompson2020) documents pro-government militias using repudiations and street fighting to menace churchgoers and intimidate clergy from reading and distributing the letters at mass (456–473).
In an October letter, Bishop Eduardo Boza Masvidal characterized the government as “passing the just limits of aid and vigilance” and reaching for “absolute control.”Footnote 13 In “Rome or Moscow,” Archbishop Pérez Serantes praised the United States’ stance against communism while stating the real battle for Cuba was between Rome and Moscow, contextualizing the church’s role in the geopolitics of the Cold War;Footnote 14 in “Let’s Live in Peace,” the archbishop wrote of a church “ready to suffer in the name of Jesus” and likened the shouts of paredón to, “Christians, to the lions!”Footnote 15
The final collective letter of the COCC in December 1960 was an “Open Letter from the Episcopate to the Prime Minister,” addressed to Fidel Castro: the bishops condemned the impending nationalization of Villanueva University and a national media under “total control of the government.”Footnote 16 Archbishop Pérez Serantes issued additional letters speaking of the church’s capacity for resistance, with references to “the Christian soldier” and “weapons of faith.”Footnote 17 According to Uría (Reference Uría2011), Pérez Serantes knew attacks on the church would end “if he applauded the maximum leader” (440), illustrating the centrality of personalist rule under Fidel Castro. In the archbishop’s last letters of February and March 1961, he was compelled to declare he had no participation with subversive movements and lamented the “unequal struggle” between the state and its declared internal enemy, the Catholic Church.Footnote 18
By 1960, predominantly Catholic exiles were being trained by the CIA for a military intervention (Thomas, Reference Thomas1998, 1339–1354). In 1961, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion was met with repression of the institutional church: public expression of religion was prohibited, churches were closed, and several clerics were detained (Uría, Reference Uría2011, 467–478; Thompson, Reference Thompson2020, 463, 473–474). More than one hundred foreign clergy were expelled, as Catholics exiled in droves to the United States, concentrating in Miami (Pedraza, Reference Pedraza2007, 107–109). An estimated two hundred clerics remained, and Catholic schools and hospitals were nationalized; in the mid-1960s, some priests and religious were interned in prison labor camps (Pedraza, Reference Pedraza2007, 128–139; Valencia, Reference Valencia2019, 12–14).
After 1962, Pope John XXIII and his successor Paul VI reversed Vatican policy and encouraged bishops to find accommodation with communist states. The 1968 CELAM conference at Medellín denounced the “institutionalized violence” inherent to right-wing military regimes in Latin America, while progressive priests built ecclesial base communities (CEBs) committed to promoting social justice throughout the region (Mainwaring, Reference Mainwaring, Wilde, Mainwaring and Wilde1989, 5). In Cuba, Papal Nuncio Cesare Zacchi revived Vatican diplomacy with Fidel Castro (Crahan, Reference Crahan1985, 329–332).
In 1969, the COCC issued its first collective letter since 1960, with significance for subsequent periods of the church-state relationship: while still resisting rapprochement with the government, the bishops invoked the spirit of Medellín and denounced the United States’ economic embargo of Cuba, underscoring its deleterious effects on the Cuban population.Footnote 19 Opposition to the embargo became the consensus position that prevented church-state relations from regressing to direct confrontation.
Nicaragua’s Somoza regime (1972–1979): episcopal confrontation and failed mediation
For decades, the Somoza regime operated in Nicaragua as a personalist dynasty, concentrating power in a single family while violently repressing insurgent groups. From 1967, Anastasio Somoza Debayle controlled the presidency together with the National Guard and depended on United States military and economic support; state-controlled elections were held while extensive corruption permeated the ruling elite (Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991, 91–92).
The Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) formed in the 1960s and grew into a popular insurgent movement in the 1970s (Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991; Williams, Reference Williams, Mainwaring and Wilde1989b). Following the 1972 Managua earthquake, Somoza appropriated relief funds, and elite discontent weakened the government (Crahan, Reference Crahan, Mainwaring and Wilde1989, 42–43; Williams, Reference Williams, Mainwaring and Wilde1989b, 65). Support for the insurgency increased dramatically after the 1978 assassination of journalist Pedro Joaquín Chamorro; pervasive violent repression eventually cost Somoza the support of the United States during the Carter administration (Wickham-Crowley, Reference Wickham-Crowley1992, 263–281).
Episcopal response
As in Cuba, Nicaragua’s bishops would confront a personalist regime that used violent repression and lost United States backing. Until 1972, the episcopal hierarchy aligned with Somoza as Cuba’s bishops had with Batista, attending the inaugurations of the dictator without publicly denouncing repression (Williams, Reference Williams, Mainwaring and Wilde1989b, 80; Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990, 73, 207). CEBs supported the FSLN independently of Nicaragua’s bishops, who were apprehensive of Marxism in the insurgency, especially considering the recent experience of Cuba (Mainwaring, Reference Mainwaring1986, 19; Gill, Reference Gill1998, 113–114).
The appointment of Miguel Obando y Bravo as Archbishop of Managua redefined the trajectory of the CEN. Following the 1972 earthquake, the CEN issued its first letter denouncing corruption and affirming that the regime’s “political structures do not respond to the demands of our time”; the bishops recognized the “revolutionary ferment” taking hold of the continent and called on the government to reject violent repression.Footnote 20 Letters grew increasingly critical, and in 1974 Archbishop Obando y Bravo declined to participate in a Somoza reinauguration (Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990, 120, 207). As Somoza imposed a state of siege, the CEN gained credibility with the FSLN while maintaining close ties with economic elites (Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991; Williams, Reference Williams1989a, 98).
In January 1977, an episcopal letter denounced the torture and disappearance of victims of the National Guard in a section titled “We Reject All Forms of Violence” and implored the government to guarantee freedom of expression and religion.Footnote 21 Catholic youth occupied churches to demand freedom for political prisoners, and the bishops mediated between the FSLN and Somoza during crises, including the FSLN seizure of the National Palace in August 1977 (Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990, 119, 130). By 1978, Archbishop Obando y Bravo was calling for Somoza’s resignation to permit a transition to democracy (Crahan, Reference Crahan, Mainwaring and Wilde1989, 43). In 1979, Somoza authorized the bombing of cities, making churches targets for attack in the final months of the insurrection (Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990, 145).
The CEN showed open support for the insurgency in a letter issued on June 2, 1979, just before the FSLN victory. Titled “Christian Presence in the Revolution: Insurrectional Moment,” the crucial section falls under the heading, “Legitimacy of the Insurrection,” borrowing language from Medellín:
“The extreme measures of revolutionary insurrections cause pain to everyone, but one cannot deny their moral and juridical legitimacy in cases of evident and prolonged tyranny that violates fundamental human rights and harms national well-being.”Footnote 22
On June 30, the CEN affirmed its preference for a multiparty system committed to reformist rather than radical change; the bishops expressed trust that the “concrete ideals that inspired the liberation struggle” would also inspire national unity and the freedom “to choose and decide democratically.”Footnote 23 In July, Somoza fled, and the FSLN took Managua.
The CEN issued a letter in November 1979 that articulated a reconciliation with socialism the COCC never attempted, acknowledging “the dramatic conversion of our church” and “the dynamic fact of class struggle that should lead to a just transformation of structures.”Footnote 24 Still, the bishops asserted the need for democracy and the participation of Nicaraguans in the revolutionary process through organized political parties.Footnote 25
Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime (1979–1990): episcopal confrontation and successful mediation
The government established by the FSLN in 1979 is classified by Geddes et al. (Reference Geddes, Wright and Frantz2014) as a dominant-party regime: leadership in the revolutionary junta was secured by the FSLN while lacking the personalist element of the Cuban model. Members of the business elite briefly joined the original junta, and party competition was reestablished in the 1984 elections. The government did not imprison or execute large numbers of opponents, and political violence outside the Sandinista-Contra conflict was limited (Mainwaring et al., Reference Mainwaring, Brinks and Pérez-Liñán2001, 54). The FSLN was aligned with Cuba and received modest military and economic aid from the Soviet Union (Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991, 108–109).Footnote 26
In 1981, American president Ronald Reagan authorized the CIA to provide aid to armed groups opposing the FSLN. Former security officials of the Somoza regime established the Contra insurgency from bases in Honduras but failed to gain territory or popular support (Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990, 176–197). In 1983, the FSLN initiated military conscription and emergency decrees requiring censorship to prosecute the civil war (Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991, 105–107). By 1985, Nicaragua’s ports were mined, and President Reagan imposed a full economic embargo. The Sandinista army would successfully counter the Contra units, but the FSLN did not have stable great power support, as the Soviet Union entered the Perestroika era of military rollback (Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991, 109).
Episcopal response
In the 1980s, the CEN confronted a government lacking the highly personalized leadership of other periods of episcopal confrontation. But after legitimizing the Contra opposition with United States support, Nicaragua’s bishops came to mediate a transition to democracy. The absence of personalist authority in the regime, combined with the need to alleviate United States pressure, accounts for successful mediation toward the 1990 elections.
The split between the episcopal hierarchy and the popular church helps to explain how the CEN positioned itself for mediation after first confronting the FSLN: Mainwaring (Reference Mainwaring, Wilde, Mainwaring and Wilde1989) describes the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978 and the CELAM conference at Puebla in 1979 as initiating a conservative shift in the church hierarchy that accompanied a wave of democratization in Latin America (29). The Vatican’s desire for institutional distance between church and state was expressed in firm opposition to priests holding public office; as the Sandinista government included progressive Catholic priests, Nicaragua became a focal point for the Vatican as it was for the United States.
Contrary to Cuba, the primary threat was not the exclusion of the church from the revolution but the absorption of its followers. As priests participated in health and literacy campaigns, the bishops raised the threat of juridical separation by the “popular church” (Gooren, Reference Gooren2010, 51). In May 1980, the bishops asserted that priests must not identify with specific parties or governments so as to preserve their prophetic roles.Footnote 27 In 1981 and 1982, the CEN criticized the FSLN for failing to hold elections and the popular church for subverting the church hierarchy, considering priests who stayed in government posts “in an attitude of open rebellion and formal disobedience to legitimate ecclesiastical authority.”Footnote 28 The well-studied papal visit to Nicaragua in 1983 increased polarization within the church, as Pope John Paul II scolded the priest and minister of culture Ernesto Cardenal at the airport and emphasized church unity at a public mass in Managua while crowds chanted for peace (Crahan, Reference Crahan, Mainwaring and Wilde1989, 54–55).
The papal visit followed increased Contra attacks. In 1982, the CEN recognized the right of the government to “take necessary measures to guarantee the defense and integrity of the homeland” without condemning specific Contra actions.Footnote 29 But a rupture came with the Sandinista announcement of military conscription in 1983: the CEN issued a letter stating, “Nobody can be obliged to take up arms to defend an ideology they do not support nor perform military service for a political party,” and argued that the armies of totalitarian governments are based on a “revolutionary conception” that results in the “absolute dictatorship of a political party.”Footnote 30
A letter on reconciliation published in anticipation of national elections in 1984 lent legitimacy to the Contras and produced a formal break in church-state relations:
“The path to social peace is only made possible through dialogue…This dialogue must have participation of all Nicaraguans inside and outside of the country, without discrimination of ideology, class, or party. We also believe that Nicaraguans who have taken up arms against the government should participate in this dialogue.”Footnote 31
The bishops referred to “foreign powers taking advantage of our situation to foment economic and ideological exploitation,” leaving open suggestions of equivalency of Soviet support for the FSLN with United States support for the Contras. The government condemned the letter as proof of the hierarchy’s links with counterrevolutionary forces, and the CEN reacted with additional letters denouncing campaigns to characterize the bishops as anti-patriotic.Footnote 32 Subsequently, the four priests holding government offices were suspended from the church by the CEN.
In 1985, as President Reagan implemented the embargo and released a peace plan recommending a Sandinista-Contra dialogue mediated by the CEN, the Vatican made Archbishop Obando y Bravo a cardinal (Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990, 220–223). After ceremonies in Rome, the new Cardinal Obando y Bravo celebrated mass in Miami before a crowd that included leaders of the Contra armies, remarking to reporters, “I do not object to being identified with the people who have taken up arms.”Footnote 33
In 1986, the bishops announced they had met with the “President of the Republic, Commander Daniel Ortega” to study the normalization of church-state relations.Footnote 34 Latin American governments now favored diplomatic solutions to civil wars in Central America, and the 1987 Esquipulas Peace Accords linked ceasefires to democratization processes (Dodson and O’Shaughnessy, Reference Dodson and O’Shaughnessy1990, 237–244; Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991, 108–109). President Ortega named Cardinal Obando y Bravo to head the new National Reconciliation Commission to mediate negotiations for a FSLN-Contra ceasefire and multiparty elections in 1990 (Crahan, Reference Crahan, Mainwaring and Wilde1989, 57).
Violeta Chamorro led a coalition of opposition factions to defeat Ortega, aided by United States funding and signals the embargo would end with a Chamorro victory (Grynspan, Reference Grynspan, Goldstone, Gurr and Moshiri1991, 110–112). The CEN congratulated the outgoing government for an orderly election and its “democratic attitude in accepting the results” and congratulated the new government with “the hope of mutual respect between church and state to contribute to the well-being of all Nicaraguans.”Footnote 35 As Nicaragua democratized in the 1990s, the command structures of the Sandinista army and police remained intact, but the loss of state support for CEBs meant the episcopate could systematically dismantle the communal networks established by progressive priests (Gunderson, Reference Gunderson2018, 51, 70).
Cuba’s post-Cold War Castro regime (1993–2003): episcopal confrontation and positioning for mediation
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 combined with intensified United States sanctions in 1992 and 1996 to create a profound economic crisis in Cuba (Azicri, Reference Azicri2000). The government instituted no changes to its leadership, remaining a personalist, dominant-party regime with Fidel Castro as head of the government, party, and military. The government retained significant popular support while enacting minor reforms to deal with the crisis. Economic recovery only began with the Cuba-Venezuela alliance built following the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998 (Pedraza and Romero, Reference Pedraza and Romero2023, 153–163).
Dissident groups formed at the grassroots level, often networking through Catholic dioceses. None gained a national following, though several dissidentorganizations earned international recognition. Catholic activism was manifest in the 2002 Varela Project, a petition of 11,000 signatures that proposed political reforms, including free elections and amnesty for political prisoners (Fernandez, Reference Fernández2003). The government responded with a referendum making socialism permanent in Cuba.Footnote 36 By this time, Cuba’s economy was being subsidized with Venezuelan oil. In March 2003, seventy-five dissidents were arrested and charged as agents of the United States. Their wives and relatives began gathering at the Church of Santa Rita in Havana for a weekly march as the “Ladies in White,” eventually facing repeated arrests and harassment (Del Riego and Rodriguez, Reference Del Riego and Rodriguez2011).
Episcopal response
As United States pressure intensified in the 1990s, the COCC took a moderately confrontational approach while the personalization of Cuba’s government held constant. The COCC was led by a new generation of prelates, including Jaime Ortega, who made Archbishop of Havana in 1981. The COCC had called its first national conclave in 1986, the Encuentro Nacional Ecclesial Cubano (ENEC), to form a pastoral mission in a revolutionary society that was now considered permanent in Cuba (Kirk, Reference Kirk1989, 146–155).
The COCC identified closely with the papacy of John Paul II; at the 1992 CELAM conference in Santo Domingo, Latin America’s conservative bishops reiterated the church’s defense of representative democracy and its intention to position the church as a civil society actor (Hagopian, Reference Hagopian2009, 30–47). In Cuba, a general rapprochement opened space for religion: in 1991, the PCC dropped its ban on Christian members, and in 1992, the PCC amended the constitution to make Cuba a secular rather than atheist state. The COCC reciprocated by denouncing new United States sanctions in 1992.Footnote 37 Still, the economic crisis fed church attendance and increasing waves of out-migration (Pedraza, Reference Pedraza2007, 177–180).
In September 1993, the COCC issued “Love Endures All,” a lengthy pastoral letter that reignited church-state tensions.Footnote 38 The letter contained the most comprehensive critique since the 1960 letters but without directly condemning the government.Footnote 39 Framed in a post-Cold War context, the COCC set itself as a mediator of opposing viewpoints while emphasizing the virtue of dialogue. The bishops affirmed they did not identify “with any Party, political group, or ideology” but cannot stay neutral in the struggle for justice. With reference to the “collapse of the socialist camp in East Europe” and the corresponding “North American embargo,” the COCC maintained the consistent line denouncing United States policy since 1969, rejecting “any measures sanctioning the Cuban government that contribute to increased difficulties for our people.” But the bishops also expressed hope that “positive steps can be found to solve the difficulties between the governments of the United States and Cuba.”Footnote 40
A section titled “Political Aspects” enumerated a series of “political irritants” that “detract from the duty of the state to concern itself with the well-being of everyone”: the bishops emphasize the “omnipresent and exclusionary” character of the national ideology and the “excessive control of the organs of state security” that intrudes on private lives and produces a social fear that is “hard to define but palpable to feel.” A concluding section titled “The Better Path: Dialogue” expresses hope for a cordial negotiation that would open the domestic and international spheres, arguing that if Cuba can establish relations with countries of different political systems, “then we cannot see why at the national level Cubans should be necessarily uniform.”Footnote 41
The government vilified the church in state-run media, and the COCC defended itself in subsequent letters.Footnote 42 The Vatican made Archbishop Ortega a cardinal in 1994, and John Paul II prepared a visit to Cuba (Pedraza and Romero, Reference Pedraza and Romero2023, 227–228), signifying approval of the COCC’s approach to church-state relations as had benefited Cardinal Obando y Bravo in Nicaragua. With massive gatherings for the pope’s homilies, the theme of the 1998 papal visit was that “Cuba must open to the world and the world must open to Cuba,” harkening to the language of “Love Endures All.”
Pope John Paul II’s call to end the embargo and the reiteration of these sentiments by the COCC reduced church-state tensions. The COCC had defined itself as an independent episcopate willing to engage in nuanced forms of confrontation. But the limits on what the bishops would endorse were established following the organization of the Varela Project.
In September 2003, six months after the March crackdown, the COCC issued a long pastoral letter titled “The Social Presence of the Church” that distanced the bishops from the Varela Project.Footnote 43 Marking the 10-year anniversary of “Love Endures All,” the bishops stated they were experiencing a “return to the ideological language and methods of the first years of the Revolution” that included a “subtle campaign against the church.”Footnote 44 But the letter demonstrated discretion against directly confronting a regime strengthened and stabilized by its alignment with Venezuela.
The bishops repeated they would not endorse any partisan organization of the government or opposition: “In the political debate among parties that confront one another…the Church must be neutral, although it is part of its ethic that the rights of everyone be respected in this debate.” References to the Varela Project were couched in generalities: the bishops expressed concern with “the incarceration and long sentences imposed on a considerable number of political opponents,” but insisted the church “does not adhere to this or that Project.” Rather, “the only project the church can contribute to society is the one proposed by Christ, through his words and example.” The bishops underscore their institutional interests, stating, “The church in Cuba has to be firm and united to maintain its independence before the power of those who govern and those who contest this power.”Footnote 45
The letter also reaffirmed “the value of dialogue as the wisest path in conflict resolution,” suggesting that the COCC should lead efforts for mediation: “We want to remind all Catholics that their bishops are the primary interlocutors of dialogue with the civil authorities that can contribute to overcome difficulties which affect our society.”Footnote 46 In 2003, the COCC had staked two positions to establish credibility as a mediator: neutrality on political dissidence and consistent critique of United States policy. These positions would successfully link domestic and international issues in the two-level mediation process starting in 2010.
Cuba’s dominant-party regime (2010–2025): successful mediation and shifting United States policy
Cuba’s leadership transition from Fidel Castro to Raúl Castro was formalized in 2008; Raúl Castro promoted a new generation of military and party officials while implementing pluralist economic reforms and term limits in the presidency and PCC leadership (Mujal-León, Reference Mujal-León2011). Miguel Díaz-Canel became president in 2018, marking the depersonalization of a system that remained one-party dominant.Footnote 47
However, Nicolás Maduro succeeded the deceased Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 2013 amid a global fall of oil prices (Naim and Toro, Reference Naim and Toro2018). PCC patronage networks were severely reduced, though the party remained cohesive with the security apparatus. China and Russia remained partners but not providers of aid akin to Venezuela or the Soviet Union in previous eras.Footnote 48 Cuba thus spent much of the 2010s focused on diplomatic normalization with the United States.
Episcopal response
From 2010 to 2014, the COCC negotiated prisoner releases and mediated Cuba’s opening to the United States. But after the achievement of USA-Cuba normalization, a confluence of crises led to the disintegration of each negotiated agreement. In July 2021, street protests illustrated the potential for widespread social opposition in Cuba. The COCC did not denounce the resulting government repression and nearly achieved another victory in USA-Cuba mediation at the start of 2025.
Mediation efforts began in July 2010 with conditional amnesty for political prisoners: Cardinal Ortega participated in negotiations to release 52 prisoners still detained from 2003 on condition they be exiled to Spain (Del Riego, Reference Del Riego and Rodriguez2011, 229–230). Notable activists criticized these efforts: in August 2010, dissidents signed an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI demanding the bishops cease “supporting the dictatorship.”Footnote 49 But when Benedict XVI visited Cuba in 2012, Catholics were permitted to celebrate Good Friday and organize processions (Pedraza and Romero, Reference Pedraza and Romero2023, 227–228). The COCC had the confidence of the Vatican and credibility with the government to participate in talks with the United States.
The 2013–2014 discussions began just as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina became Pope Francis; the new pope served as the guarantor of negotiations, and Cardinal Ortega hand-delivered letters from Pope Francis to presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, urging them to reach an accord.Footnote 50 Final agreements were sent to the Vatican in a meeting attended by Cardinal Ortega in October 2014, two months before diplomatic normalization was announced. USA-Cuba diplomacy was the first demonstrative example of a “Francis Doctrine” emphasizing peaceful conflict reconciliation and the church as a neutral mediator (Massaro, Reference Massaro2021).
Pope Francis traveled to Cuba in 2015 and advocated for Catholic schools and hospitals but did not hold meetings with dissidents (Kuivala, Reference Kuivala2017). President Obama visited Cardinal Ortega at Havana Cathedral during his 2016 visit to Cuba. When Pope Francis met Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first such meeting dating to the 1054 schism, they chose Cuba as the setting. The COCC had helped fortify Cuba’s reputation as a mediation site for international political and religious disputes.
Cardinal Ortega died in 2018, and Archbishop Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez was made a cardinal by Pope Francis. But the United States reinstated sanctions during the first Trump administration, and a deep economic crisis was apparent by the start of the Biden administration; the collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry and the Covid-19 pandemic converged with US sanctions to devastate Cuba’s economy. Protests beginning on July 11, 2021, constituted the largest anti-government demonstrations since 1959 (Pedraza and Romero, Reference Pedraza and Romero2023, 221–225). Repression centered on mass arrests and internet censorship; seven hundred protesters were given prison sentences, and one person was confirmed killed by police.Footnote 51
On July 12, the COCC issued a short letter stating that the bishops “could not turn a blind eye” to the events of July 11.Footnote 52 Asserting the pandemic shortages as the cause of the protests and acknowledging legitimate positions on each side of the state-society divide, the bishops stated:
“We understand that the government has responsibilities and has tried to take measures to mitigate these difficulties, but we also understand that the people have the right to express their needs, wishes, and hopes, and express publicly how some measures that have been taken are gravely affecting them.”Footnote 53
The message was consistent with language cultivated for three decades, encouraging Cubans to find peaceful solutions from a neutral position. The bishops called for dialogue, invoking the Pope’s example and arguing that “favorable solutions cannot be imposed or reached through confrontation.”Footnote 54 Critical voices included the priest José Conrado, who has called on the bishops to “assume to risk of telling the truth” and supported the 2021 protests.Footnote 55
COCC letters in the first half of the 2020s were brief, with Christmas messages representative of collective statements; key phrases stand out to signal the hierarchy’s awareness of repression while avoiding denunciations of the government. The 2022 Christmas message described Jesus as the Good Samaritan who invites everyone to accompany the most needy, including “those who suffer from hunger, loneliness, and a lack of liberty.”Footnote 56 The 2023 message acknowledged a “very difficult year” leading to a pervasive feeling among Cubans of “walking in the darkness.”Footnote 57 In January 2025, the Vatican announced successful negotiations to release hundreds of prisoners detained since 2021 in exchange for the Biden administration’s removal of Cuba from the United States state sponsors of terrorism list, the two-level linkage consistent with the 2010–2014 dialogue; however, the agreement was immediately rescinded by the incoming Trump administration.
Following the military operation to extract Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela in January 2026, the Trump adminisration implemented a full oil embargo intended to coerce the Cuban government to enact political and economic reforms, and to eliminate Russian and Chinese military and intelligence installations on the island. Through the first half of 2026, the release of political prisoners remained a core United States demand and the COCC remained a potential mediator. The Trump administration also designated the Catholic Church as an acceptable distributor of United States aid during the energy crisis.Footnote 58
Nicaragua’s Ortega regime (2011–2024): failed mediation and episcopal confrontation
Daniel Ortega’s presidency from 2006 is marked by steadily increasing personalization (Gooren, Reference Gooren2010, 56). In 2010, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional ban on consecutive terms, leading to Ortega’s 2011 reelection and giving the president control over judicial appointments. Constitutional reforms in 2014 permitted unlimited reelection and gave Ortega authority to appoint military and police commanders; the Sovereign Security Law of 2015 gave Ortega power to use coercion against any person deemed a threat to the state (Thaler, Reference Thaler2017, 158–160).Footnote 59 In 2016, Daniel Ortega was again reelected with his wife Rosario Murillo as vice president. Though a rhetorical adversary, the United States was Nicaragua’s top trading partner, while Venezuela provided oil subsidies that funded patronage (Thaler, Reference Thaler2017, 165).
In the first decade of Ortega’s return to the presidency, protests were suppressed but did not involve violent force (Mosinger et al., Reference Mosinger, Thaler, García and Fowler2022, 256–269). Ortega’s announcement of pension reforms in April 2018, combined with a mismanaged response to wildfires, sparked demonstrations that grew into a nationwide civil resistance campaign including marches, strikes, and roadblocks. The government responded with lethal repression, killing 59 in the first week of protests (Thaler and Mosinger, Reference Thaler and Mosinger2022, 133–137). The military remained in the barracks, but police and paramilitary groups targeted protesters with impunity. Tens of thousands fled Nicaragua. Reports documented 355 people killed and 2,000 injured through 2019 and the cancellation of the formal status of 3,000 organizations by 2023.Footnote 60 The Ortega government had announced competitive elections for 2021, but instead placed front-runner Cristiana Chamorro (daughter of former president Violeta Chamorro) under house arrest and six opposition candidates in prison before claiming victory (Thaler and Mosinger, Reference Thaler and Mosinger2022, 140–141).
Following the violence, the United States implemented targeted sanctions against government officials, but without a full embargo.Footnote 61 As Venezuela’s crisis depleted subsidies to Nicaragua and Cuba alike, Nicaragua deepened commercial and political ties with China and Russia (Thaler and Mosinger, Reference Thaler and Mosinger2022, 142–143). In 2021, Nicaragua switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing and later announced a China-Nicaragua trade agreement.Footnote 62 In 2022, the Nicaraguan Congress authorized the presence of Russian troops and warships in the country.Footnote 63
Episcopal response
Much like Cuba’s bishops in 1960, Nicaragua’s bishops from 2018 confronted a personalist regime engaged in violent repression while shifting from the United States toward alternate great power partners. These conditions stand out when considering that in 2018 the CEN was on the side of rising discontent against a leader devoid of charisma, while from 1959 to 1961 the COCC moved against deep popular support for the Cuban Revolution and its highly charismatic leader.
Cardinal Obando y Bravo had reconciled with Daniel Ortega before the 2006 election and officiated the marriage of Ortega and Murillo. Church and state found accommodation on social issues, including 2007 legislation outlawing abortion (Gooren, Reference Gooren2010, 55–56). After Cardinal Obando’s retirement, Archbishop of Managua Leopoldo Brenes was made a cardinal in 2014.
From the 1990s, the CEN issued letters on each election cycle, praising multiparty democracy and encouraging Nicaraguans to exercise their rights. But during Ortega’s 2011 reelection, the CEN questioned the independence of the Supreme Court and the honesty of the electoral process.Footnote 64 In 2013, the CEN forewarned the personalization of the regime in a pronouncement on the removal of term limits: Nicaragua’s bishops noted the 2007 CELAM conference in Aparecida expressed concern that democratic instruments were being used to spread authoritarianism in the region, even “to install totalitarian regimes.” The bishops characterized Ortega’s reforms as “favoring the establishment and perpetuation of absolute power, to be exercised by a person or party in dynastic form.”Footnote 65
The first CEN letter on the 2018 crisis from April 20 appealed to “the authorities of the country to hear the cry of young Nicaraguans” exercising the right to protest.Footnote 66 The bishops rejected violence and invited the authorities to dialogue. Ortega initially announced a National Dialogue to be presided over by Cardinal Brenes, but opposition demands included new elections and demobilization of paramilitaries. The government refused to compromise, and violent repression continued (Mosinger et al., Reference Mosinger, Thaler, García and Fowler2022). In letters on May 11 and 14, the bishops appealed directly to Ortega to cease repression and support the dialogue, affirming that the “goal must be democratization.”Footnote 67
On May 16, the National Dialogue began while marches persisted. After Bishop of Managua Silvio Báez received death threats on social media, the CEN issued a letter reiterating their commitment to dialogue while highlighting the “prophetic role of bishops to denounce” and accusing the government of “crude repression that created one of the worst crises in the country’s history.”Footnote 68 By May 23, the National Dialogue was suspended.
During marches celebrating Nicaraguan mothers on May 30, fifteen protestors were killed. The CEN issued a letter on May 31 condemning the violence and stating that dialogue could not restart while Nicaraguans cannot peacefully protest.Footnote 69 Catholic Churches again became shelters of refuge, invoking Pope Francis’ description of the church as a “field hospital after battle” (McCormick, Reference McCormick2021, 168; Mosinger et al., Reference Mosinger, Thaler, García and Fowler2022, 253–263). Continued violent repression moved the CEN into the opposition while protestors invoked the 1979 revolution against Somoza as a mobilizing frame; some bishops and priests walked with protestors and rang church bells to warn of security forces (Mosinger et al., Reference Mosinger, Thaler, García and Fowler2022; Muga and Flores, Reference Muga and Flores2022, 356).
Repression across June and July brought a definitive end to mediation. The bishops had proposed elections for 2019 without Ortega or Murillo being able to stand for reelection.Footnote 70 Ortega took the proposal as evidence the church was “committed to the coup” and publicly accused the bishops of being “coup-plotters and terrorists.”Footnote 71 The CEN continued to denounce violence, and the following year Bishop Báez went into exile in Rome.Footnote 72
From 2021 to 2022, the government cancelled the legal status of Catholic universities, technical institutes, parochial schools, and media outlets (Muga and Flores, Reference Muga and Flores2022, 360).Footnote 73 Security forces continued monitoring churches and surveilling worshippers. Though the FSLN promoted ties with its Protestant base, evangelical organizations soon faced harsh repression.Footnote 74 Bishop of Matagalpa Rolando Álvarez began a hunger strike in April 2022 to protest surveillance of his parish.Footnote 75 The CEN issued a letter in May 2022 expressing solidarity with Bishop Álvarez while fearing for his personal security.Footnote 76 Surveillance continued, processions were banned, and priests and parishioners were arrested.
In August 2022, Bishop Álvarez was detained under house arrest. The CEN issued a letter stating they were in “episcopal communion” with their brother bishop.Footnote 77 Letters of solidarity were issued by episcopates across Latin America, including the COCC.Footnote 78 A defiant statement was posted online by the historically progressive Diocese of Estelí, asserting that the “incitement to hate and violence” was initiated by Ortega, accusing the government of obliging police to commit human rights violations “as in the times of Somoza,” and demanding the release of all detained bishops, priests, and laypeople.Footnote 79
Bishop Álvarez was convicted of treason and sentenced to 26 years in prison in February 2023.Footnote 80 In January 2024, the government agreed to send nineteen detained clergy to Rome, including Bishop Álvarez. The Nicaraguan government thanked Pope Francis “for the very respectful and discreet coordination carried out,” while Bishop Báez, now in Miami, denounced “the criminal Sandinista dictatorship” of President Daniel Ortega.Footnote 81
Conclusion: comparing episcopal responses in Cuba and Nicaragua
This article argues that national episcopates in Latin America are likely to confront personalist regimes that engage in violent repression and/or provoke United States punitive measures. The continued spread of autocracy, including personalist, dominant-party, military, and competitive forms of authoritarianism (Levitsky and Way, Reference Levitsky and Way2002), creates opportunities for further study of episcopal strategies in the region.
An expanded comparative analysis can contrast the structural arguments presented here with approaches that emphasize competition with other institutional religions or the mobilization of social movements as motivators of episcopal behavior in authoritarian contexts (Gill, Reference Gill1998; Smith, Reference Smith1996). This article argues that episcopal responses to autocracy are conditioned by the structural characteristics of the regime and its repressive tactics, rather than the mobilization capacities or values of social movements. Despite wide Catholic civil networking in Cuba (Crahan, Reference Crahan2017, 385–391), the COCC consistently resisted demands to support contentious movements, exemplified by the responses to the 2002 Varela Project and the 2021 protests. Strategic choices positioned the COCC for the mediator role, and dissidents were frustrated by an episcopacy that prioritized its relationship to the state.
But mediation becomes less likely in a context of personalization where compromise involves a ruler conceding aspects of their authority. From April to June 2018, the CEN proposed an agenda for dialogue in Nicaragua that would depersonalize the government, namely, holding elections without Ortega and Murillo. Violent repression was sufficiently harsh to cause the bishops to abandon mediation by the summer of 2018, whereas in 2021 the Cuban government did not resort to widespread lethal force and the COCC did not denounce the government.
Broader analysis of these arguments would involve additional cases of episcopal responses to autocracy in Latin America, including the full tenure of the Maduro regime in Venezuela, and elected governments undergoing personalization processes designed to consolidate executive authority, such as the presidency of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Further comparisons would illuminate how Latin American episcopal conferences regard their socio-political roles in challenging or accommodating autocracy in the region, amidst increasingly coercive United States hemispheric policies. The question of how bishops respond to autocratic presidents allied to the United States (such as the Delcy Rodriguez government in Venezuela) merits investigation. At the start of the 2020s, the example of Nicaragua illustrated the perils for bishops confronting autocracies, much like the 1960s example of Cuba held for the region during the Cold War. Still, bishops carry the potential to become agents of diplomacy or oppositional public actors in state-society conflicts across Latin America.
Competing interests
The author declares none.
Robert Portada III, Ph.D. University of Notre Dame; Dr. Robert Portada is a professor of political science at Kutztown University. He has published research on many areas of the global south, including Latin America and the Caribbean, East Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. His research covers religion and politics, security studies, social movements, military interventions, and international diplomacy.
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