Nicaragua: Processions Banned in Dissident City of Masaya

 In a statement, the Archdiocese of Managua announced the recent ban on processions in the city of Masaya.

(Managua) "For reasons of public security" processions in honor of Saint Jerome have been banned by the Nicaraguan National Police. He is the patron saint of the city of Masaya. As the socialist regime intensifies its persecution of the Church, it is backed by Pope Francis.

On Saturday, the Archdiocese of Managua announced in a statement: 

"The National Police of the city of Masaya has informed the religious communities and parish priests of the parishes of Masaya, San Miguel Arcángel and San Jerónimo that, for reasons of public safety, no processions are allowed on the respective feast days in this city."

The city of Masaya is 28 kilometers southwest of the capital and traditionally celebrates the longest patronal festival in Nicaragua, perhaps in the world, from September to December, in honor of Church Father Jerome.

In its statement, the Archdiocese of Managua invited parishioners “and those who devote themselves to the patron saint to remember that faith and devotion are treasures that we carry in our hearts and from there we cherish with them by virtue of ancestral heritage in our communities."

According to the archdiocese, the Masses, novenas, and liturgical celebrations will take place as planned. At the same time, the Archdiocese invoked the intercession of the Archangel Michael, St. Jerome "and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and Queen of Peace", "to heal us from all evil with the medicine of God."

Masaya is a former Sandinista stronghold that revolted in April 2018 in the wake of anti-government protests against President Daniel Ortega's Sandinista regime. In the city, the demand for the resignation of Ortega and his government was raised for the first time after they used violence to put down the demonstrations.

Since then, the bishops have been called "putschists" and "terrorists" by the Sandinistas, and the Church has been opposed by the regime. Three bishops critical of the government had to resign, go into exile, or were arrested. On August 19, Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa was arrested after having been effectively under house arrest since August 4. Several priests and seminarians were arrested with him and taken to the infamous El nuevo Chipote prison brought to opponents of the regime. Pope Francis has not yet commented on the bishop's arrest. Sandinista circles had already interceded with the Holy See in the days when the bishop was besieged by the police in the episcopal Curia to have Francis appoint the bishop to the Roman Curia. The negotiations about a "deal" have not yet led to a result. According to this, the bishop will be released on condition that he leaves Nicaragua.

The anti-Church reprisals also included the ban on nine Catholic radio stations. Three Catholic television stations were removed from the service by the state media authority.

Processions have been banned in the past because the socialist rulers fear they could become a visible expression of criticism of the regime. Priests were besieged in their churches and the faithful were prevented from entering the church for Mass.

With the support of the USA, the Central American country was ruled by the Somoza family for 43 years. 43 years ago, the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza regime and seized power for the first time. After the collapse of the communist bloc, they were removed from it but returned to the government in 2006. Relations between the Church and the Sandinistas have been strained for 43 years. The reason for this is not least church circles which, as followers of Marxist liberation theology such as the three priests Ernesto Cardenal, Fernando Cardenal, and Miguel d'Escoto, allied themselves with the Sandinistas. 

Before the Sandinista Revolution, 96 percent of Nicaraguans professed the Catholic faith. According to the latest government information, it should now be only 56 percent. The number of non-denominational rose to 16 percent, and the proportion of Protestant free churches to 25 percent - a phenomenon that Pope Francis, who is described by dictator Ortega as a "friend", seems just as unconcerned as the persecution of the church. Not everything that the government is doing is good, Francis said last Thursday on the return flight from Nur-Sultan to Rome. At the same time, however, he announced that, according to his assessment, it was "not correct" to describe the totalitarian communist regime of the People's Republic of China as "undemocratic".

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : Archdiocese of Managua/Facebook (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Has a Deal Been Struck with Sandinistas for Imprisoned Bishop Rolando Álvarez?

Yesterday the Nicaraguan police, better known as "Ortega militias", stormed the Episcopal Curia of Matagalpa and arrested the bishop and several priests, seminarians and laymen.

(Managua) On Friday, Ortega militias stormed the curia of the Diocese of Matagalpa in Nicaragua and arrested Bishop Rolando Álvarez and eight others. Noters of solidarity come from other Nicaraguan dioceses and from the USA. The secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America announced a statement from Pope Francis for Sunday. Nevertheless, it is becoming apparent that this time there will be no papal condemnation of the persecution of the Church.

In July 2021, Pope Francis retired Msgr. Juan Abelardo Mata Guevara SDB, Bishop of Estelí and Secretary General of the Nicaraguan Bishops' Conference, who had been the most fearless critic of the regime among the bishops up to that point. Bishop Silvio José Báez, who was critical of the regime, had previously been summoned to Rome in 2019 to remove him from the country. Most recently, Msgr. Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa and since last year also Apostolic Administrator of Estelí, has followed in their footsteps.

In May, Bishop Álvarez went on a hunger strike to protest the repression by the Sandinista regime aimed at 'silencing' the Church. Since then, the climate between the regime and the church has intensified. A number of church organizations were banned, and Catholic radio stations closed.

Since August 4, Bishop Álvarez has been effectively held hostage by the regime, which has had the diocesan curia of Matagalpa besieged by the police. The bishop, some priests and seminarians and two laymen stayed in the building. Bishop Álvarez continued to raise his voice through social media.

Yesterday, Ortega stormed the curia and arrested the bishop, and everyone present.

The national police, dubbed the "Ortega militias" in the country, released a statement saying the bishop and his companions had to be taken into custody for their "destabilizing and provocative activities". The bishop was taken to his family home in Managua and placed under house arrest. His eight companions were transferred to the new El Chipote prison, built specifically for the Ortega regime's political prisoners and notorious for reports of torture. Among the eight prisoners are the priests José Luis Díaz and Sadiel Eugarrios, the two vicars of the Episcopal Church of Matagalpa, the priest Ramiro Tijerino, rector of the Catholic Juan Pablo II University, the priest Raúl González, the two seminarians Darvin Leyva and Melkin Sequeira and the layman Sergio Cárdenas.

El Nuevo Chipote, the infamous prison of the Ortega regime

As first became known, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua and Primate of Nicaragua, had surprisingly been allowed to visit his fellow bishop at the place of his imprisonment.

"The Pope's silence does not mean inaction"

One of the first reactions came from the secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, Rodrigo Guerra, a staunch Bergoglian who had traveled throughout Latin America for years to defend the controversial post-synodal exhortation Amoris laetitia and the opening of access to Communion. Guerra told Aleteia that Pope Francis would soon give a statement on the situation in Nicaragua. With this allowed at the Angelus are expected on Sunday. So far, Santa Marta has been silent on the Sandinista persecution of the Church - because Francis has great sympathy for socialist regimes. Ortega himself accuses the Church in Nicaragua of preparing a coup d'etat, but calls Pope Francis a "friend".

The euphemistic police communiqué

Rodrigo Guerra stressed that Pope Francis is "well aware of what is happening in Nicaragua". The head of the Church was “very well informed about Nicaragua and his silence does not mean inaction or indecisiveness, no, nothing like that. It means that work is being done on other levels. And of course, if the Holy Father thinks it wise, he will intervene.”

“I wouldn't be surprised if, after the imprisonment of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, the Pope will make a first statement, perhaps on Sunday when he will say the Angelus prayer. That wouldn't surprise me. But that is the external problem. The Holy See works mainly with discreet diplomacy.”

According to Guerra, he himself is involved in the matter, since there is no apostolic nuncio in Nicaragua. Archbishop Waldemar Sommertag had been effectively expelled from the country by the Ortega regime in the spring.

“Yes, they believe that politics is primarily made through speeches and that the absence of a public statement from the Pope means that the Holy See is abandoning the Nicaraguan bishops or becoming an accomplice to the dictatorships. No, it's not like that," says Guerra.

 

Guerra, who is Mexican himself, made a somewhat strange comparison with the Mexican Cristeros a hundred years ago:

"In this regard, we must be very careful, because that is not the most desirable direction: entering into an armed conflict with a government. On the contrary, we must always try to favor peaceful means, even if they are slower but less bloody."

 

It was not the Cristeros who had started an armed conflict with the Masonic government. It was the regime that wanted to brutally strangle and wipe out the Church. The Cristeros were the answer of a desperate people. They were crushed with brutal violence by the officially "liberal" Mexican regime under the indifferent gaze of the US, which otherwise intervened repeatedly throughout Latin America.

A negotiated deal?

Cardinal Brenes published a very low-threshold statement on behalf of the Archdiocese of Managua, in which he expressed his solidarity with "the sister diocese of Matagalpa" but did not mention those arrested - neither Bishop Álvarez nor his companions - nor the storming of the episcopal curia and the arrests.

From this it is concluded that the rumors that Cardinal Brenes, with the support of Santa Marta, negotiated a deal for Bishop Álvarez with the regime are correct. Accordingly, the bishop does not go to prison, but has to leave the country and go into exile. That is also the reason why Cardinal Brenes was surprisingly admitted to Bishop Álvarez: to tell him about the deal and to convince him of it. After Bishop Báez, who has lived in Florida since 2019, Monsignor Álvarez would be the second bishop to have to leave the country to avoid arrest. Nicaragua would lose another leading dissident voice. A victory for the regime. A bishop in exile, see Msgr. Báez, is less dangerous than a bishop in prison. Since Msgr Álvarez is too young to let him become emeritus like Bishop Mata Guevara, harsher measures were resorted to. With the bishop's exile, the Sandinista regime is able to maintain its climate of intimidation and deterrence. 

With that, however, the likelihood of the reaction from Santa Marta promised by Rodrigo Guerra, that Pope Francis would denounce the persecution of the Church and the Ortega dictatorship, has decreased significantly again. Will one price of the deal be that Santa Marta will continue to exercise restraint? You will know tomorrow.

In contrast to the US government, the bishops of the USA showed solidarity with the church in Nicaragua. The American Bishops' Conference noted that "threats to the Catholic Church in Nicaragua are increasing amid the local social and political crisis."

The background

From 1979 to 1990, the Marxist-revolutionary Sandinistas under Daniel Ortega and the Cardenal brothers ruled Nicaragua dictatorially with a mixture of communism and liberation theology. No sooner had the Eastern bloc collapsed than the Sandinista regime fell. 

Due to the quarrels between the bourgeois parties, Daniel Ortega managed to return to power in 2006 with only 38 percent of the votes, this time through a democratic process. Conveniently, before the polls were held, the electoral law had been changed so that someone with 35 percent of the votes could be elected head of state or government. Since then, Ortega and the Sandinistas have been determined not to be ousted from power a second time.

The systematically erected Ortega regime changed the constitution and the electoral law in his favour, abolished the de facto separation of powers, abused the judiciary to fight political competitors and used the police and army mercilessly against its own citizens. Hundreds of people were killed in the crackdown on civil protests in 2018. 

After the Sandinistas eliminated or brutally controlled the opposition, the Church attracted their attention because it was able to retain some leeway. The Church became the only free voice in the country, a situation that is intolerable for the Marxist rulers for reasons of power politics, especially for the superstitious and paranoid Rosario Murillo, Ortega's wife and also his vice president.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : Articulo66/Google Maps/Policia Nacional/Curamanagua.org (Screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Police State Nicaragua

On Saturday, Nicaraguan National Police surrounded Managua Cathedral to obstruct a prayer "for the Church and for Nicaragua."

For the First Time in 30 Years, a Procession Has Been Halted -- Priest Arrested

(Managua) The anti-Church measures in Nicaragua are becoming open repression. Nevertheless, Pope Francis is silent on the persecution, as it showed itself this weekend.

Events in the Central American country are unfolding. In Managua, the police had surrounded the cathedral. In various parts of the country, the processions for the feast of the Assumption of Mary had been banned. The prelude was the ban on a procession planned for August 13. An unprecedented event in the history of the country since the end of the Sandinista revolutionary government in 1990. The Sandinista regime cited "a threat to internal security" as the reason.

With this justification, the ban on a large procession "for the Church and for Nicaragua" was first imposed. This procession had been planned for August 13 at the end of the Marian Congress. In the procession, a statue of Our Lady of Fatima was to be carried through the streets of Managua.

The police extensively monitored the area around the congress and obstructed the faithful from reaching the congress grounds. Buses and cars were stopped, the people checked and partly prevented from continuing their journey. The Archdiocese of Managua, because of the ban on the procession, called on the faithful to come to the cathedral after the end of the Marian Congress to pray for the aforementioned petitions.

Sandinista hostility to the Church: "Demons in cassocks"

Head of state and government Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo accuse the church of planning a coup d'état in 2018 to put an end to Sandinista rule. In reality, the ecclesiastical hierarchy had sought mediation between the socialist regime and the people who had gathered in the streets for mass protests. Ortega brutally suppressed the protests. Hundreds of people were killed. Since then, the Church has been subjected to numerous harassments and has been openly persecuted for months. The reason for this is that Ortega and Murillo are convinced that the critics of the regime gather in the protection of the Church, which is why they see in every procession and every prayer an anti-regime rally.

Police contingent for intimidation and ready to access

On Twitter, a user wrote on the news that the police had surrounded the cathedral of Managua:

"If it is an attack to attend Mass, FAITH is the only thing this dictatorship is afraid of." 

Ortega's wife, who has served as vice president since 2017, attacks the Church almost daily, calling priests "imposters" and "manipulators." 

Ortega himself described the country's bishops as "demons with cassocks." In the past two months alone, the Ortega-Murillo couple has closed eleven radio stations and five television stations. Most of them were under Church sponsorship. Most recently, the regime closed Radio Darío in the city of León last Friday.

Bishop Álvarez of Matagalpa is held "hostage" by the police in his Curia, as his confrere Msgr. Baéz criticized. Álvarez criticized the government's measures on Twitter:

"They have shut down all our radio stations, but they will not silence the Word of God."

 

Since August 4th, the police have been besieging the diocesan curia of Matagalpa. Since then, the bishop has been held in it together with several priests, some seminarians and two laymen. As he continues his criticism via social networks, the regime has since initiated criminal proceedings against him for allegedly "organizing violent groups" and "inciting hatred."

In various parts of the country, Monday, on the feast of the Assumption, the police prohibited priests from carrying out traditional processions or other activities outside the churches.

Yesterday, the country's Episcopal Conference also criticised the arrest of priests without being accused of anything. [Reminds one of the treatment the FFI got from Bergoglio and Volpe.] For example, the diocese of Siuna in the north of the country announced the arrest of Don Oscar Benavidez of the Holy Spirit Church in Mulukukú. The priest had been arrested on Sunday afternoon "without giving reasons or motives". The diocese demanded information from the state about the whereabouts of the priest. However, the police refused to confirm the arrest themselves.

The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights CENDIH announced that the priest was "taken out of his vehicle and taken away in a patrol car in an unknown direction," and called for "an end to the persecution of the Church and its clergy."

Mulukukú was a center of anti-Sandinista resistance in the first Ortega dictatorship in the 80s.

"No freedom of religion, no freedom of expression"

Nicaraguan priest Edwin Román, who lives in exile in the U.S., told VOA News that in Nicaragua there is "no freedom of religion, no freedom of expression, no freedom of movement."

Bishop Silvio José Báez, who expressed his solidarity with Bishop Álvarez on Twitter, also lives in exile in the USA today. According to official language regulations, the regime critic had asked Pope Francis in 2019 to release him from his office as auxiliary bishop of Managua. In reality, Francis had presented his head to the regime by calling him – "for his safety" – to the Vatican. Initially, it was said that he would be given a new task there until his return to Nicaragua would be possible again. But that was not the case. Bishop Báez was not given a task in Rome out of consideration for the Ortega regime. Instead, the Carmelite was assigned a Jesuit community in Florida as his place of residence. [Imagine the stench of iniquity?]

For years, the Church has been in a field of tension that weighs heavily on it. While the Church in Nicaragua is being persecuted more and more brutally, Pope Francis is silent on this while dictator Ortega calls Francis his "friend." Neither on Sunday nor yesterday did Francis comment on the events in Nicaragua at the Angelus in St. Peter's Square.

The "friendship" could be captured in pictures last Saturday, when the entrances to the Marian Congress in Managua were monitored by the police and the cathedral was surrounded by national police. Nevertheless, several thousand Nicaraguans managed to reach the cathedral and pray there "for the Church and for Nicaragua".

The area around the cathedral, located in the center of the capital, was the scene of large mass protests against the Ortega regime in 2018. Since then, public rallies have been suppressed by the state. Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua and Primate of Nicaragua, said on August 13th, apparently addressing the government: "Lord forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Characteristic of the repressive climate in Nicaragua, the mask requirement still enforced in the summer of 2022 due to an alleged corona threat that applies even to outdoor gatherings.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Twitter (Screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Pope Grieves Death of Mass Murdering Communist Dictator

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis said the death of Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro was "sad news" and that he was grieving and praying for his repose.

Francis expressed his condolences in a Spanish-language message to Fidel's brother, President Raul Castro on Saturday.

The pope, who met Fidel Castro when he visited Cuba last year, said he had received the "sad news" and added: "I express to you my sentiments of grief."

Fidel Castro, who was a professed atheist, was baptized as a Catholic and educated in schools run by the Jesuits, the religious order of which the pope is a member.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Papal Appointee Enzo Bianchi Calls Fatima a "Swindle"

(Rome) For one of the darlings of  Church light, Fatima is only a "swindle". Enzo Bianchi, the "monk" and "Prior" of "monastic, interconfessional monastery" Bose, who is a layman in fact, holds the Angelic and Marian apparitions in 1917 in Fatima for a "swindle" because, so says Bianchi, a God , "who talks about the persecuted Christians, but forgets the six million Jews annihilated in Germany is not a credible God".  Bianchi's opinions thus  twists and turns, and the bottom line of the self-proclaimed Prior is to consistently follow the Mainstream.

Bianchi, the Papal Consultor

Enzo Bianchi kept at a distance  by Benedict XVI. but under Pope Francis,  Bianchi is feeling an updraft for promoting a "horizontal, anthropocentric Christianity" (Msgr. Antonio Livi). The "false prophet" (Msgr. Antonio Livi)  was recently the subject of an editorial in an edition of Credere, the official weekly newspaper for the Jubilee of Mercy, along with photo on the front page.

Pope Francis appointed Bianchi in July 2014 as Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Bianchi is the "prophet" of a "demagogic search for peace, according to an illusory, universal amity and a secular solidarity," said Msgr. Livi of the friend of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who was one of Bianchi's patrons.

Bianchi calls for  overcoming of the papacy and its reduction to a symbolic and representative primacy. This does not prevent him from scattering roses before the reigning Pope  and celebrating him as a "new Psalmist" and "new Bernard of Clairvaux."

 Bianchi, however, thinks that the Mother of God is  "not a suitable model for the promotion of women in the Church". According to Bianchi, Christ "said nothing about homosexuality, and thus the Church should remain silent on it." The family was only "a  form that society gives it," which is why it can be changed at any time by the society.

"A God Who Spoke About Christianity in 1917, But Not about Persecution of the Jews is Not Credible"

Marian apparition in Fatima on 13 August 1917

The Bian

chi-utterances, wrote the well-known Catholic journalist Vittorio Messori: "For the Prior of Bose the phenomena of 1917 is a swindle because a God who speaks about persecuted Christians, but forgets the six million annihilated Jews in Germany is  no credible God. However Bianchi should remember that Communism (Lenin seizes power in 1917) has at least 100 million deaths on its conscience, and there would not have  been Hitler, if there had not previously been Lenin."

Vittorio Messori wrote a 1985 interview book with the then CDF Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: "On the Situation of the Faith."  It's a book that is considered an essential turning point in the perception of the post-conciliar period, because it articulated a diffuse discomfort and lent a voice to it.

Messori has now presented a new edition of a book first published in 2005, "I potesi su Maria" (Hypotheses on Mary). He is to expand it 13 chapters and 150 pages, wherein Messori shall point to Bianchi's criticism of Fatima, to which refers to other critics, including the Dominican Jean Cardonnel.

Criticism of the Dominican Jean Cardonnel on Fatima

In  the year 2000 just as Pope John Paul II published the Third Secret of Fatima, or -. According to some - at least one part of it, the left-leaning daily Le Monde released an article in France by Father Cardonnel, who was at this time of his life, the head of  clerical dissidents and political opposition. Cardonnels idols were  Mao, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and even the destroyer of the Cambodian people, Pol Pot, had place at the summit for the French Dominican.

Though he was a nuisance to his brothers with his eternal 'no' to everything that was sacred to the rest, he was allowed to live in the monastery of Montpellier. Cardonnel, who cared about no dogma and no Church law, forbade under outbursts of anger for anyone call him "Father". The prior of the monastery eventually took advantage of a trip the already 90 year old Cardonnel was on, and had packed his things neatly and quartered him in the nursing home. Cardonnel cried "scandal", portrayed himself as a victim and finding he had squandered time on a frivolous case appealing to the Canon Law, then called on the French government to help. He accused the Prior of trespassing. After a long negotiation, the court agreed with his case and sentenced the Prior. The court asserted an absolute precedent into legal history, a monastic cell was a private room. A provocative and dangerous decision, because it restricted and limited the ecclesiastical of authority over their own areas.

Cardonnel: "The Supposed 'Secret' of Fatima is a Fake"

The deadly power of the Red Star

This Cardonnel wrote in 2000 in Le Monde: "This alleged 'secret' is a fake. It is as fake as the Donation of Constantine, which was designed to justify a diabolical absurdity: a Christian empire. A great Italian theologian - one should not forget his name: Enzo Bianchi, the founder of a new monastic community - has the superstition and seen  immediately immediately through  what the Vatican  is doing with Fatima. In the daily La Repubblica, Brother Bianchi put his finger inexorably into the wound. He wrote: 'A God who thinks in 1917 that there will be a persecution of Christians, but does not speak of the Holocaust and the six million Jews annihilated, is not a credible God '. Yes, you have disclosed this wound: what more  glaring evidence does one need not recognize that the so-called Third Secret of Fatima is a fake and can not come from God? It's a fake, which discredited the Eternal. A credible God, I repeat Bianchi, the God of  Catholic racism who cares only for his family, for his Catholic race, while the kin of Jesus may fall prey to oblivion. "

According to Bianchi, only God who would have predicted and condemned the Shoa is  "Credible"

As far as the Dominican Cardonnel, who died in 2009.   Bianchi never disagreed Cardonnel but rather confirmed him. Messori writes: "In the meantime, there also circulated among certain Christians the conviction that the persecution of Jews by the Nazis during the twelve years 1933 to 1945 does not know any comparison and no comparison was possible. It would involve the absolute evil of the greatest crime of the entire history to the most radical example of human malignancy. It is no coincidence that the guilt of the Nazis as inexpiable why even today at ninety years old, if not even to hunt and condemn centenarians, because they are made responsible for it in any way, that which is referred to with the religious term, 'Holocaust', in any case, for the Holocaust. For this crime, and only for this, no statute  limitations is provided. Following Cardonnel and Bianchi, I repeat, even God must - if he wants to speak to us through Mary -  recognize the Shoah  and especially curse it, otherwise he is not a credible God.'  He is not a true God when he explicitly blames Auschwitz," said Messori. A revelation, message, vision or appearance in the required connection with the Shoah or Auschwitz , has been neither been here nor elsewhere mentioned in connection with  Fatima.

Without Communism, No Nazism without Lenin in 1917 no Hitler in 1933

It should be unnecessary, but for safety's sake, he'll do it yet, and emphasize that it is not about going to trivialize the crimes of National Socialism in any way: "The swastika was a tragic perversion of the Christian cross. One can therefore only connect the condemnation. It is nevertheless paradoxical to reject Fatima on these grounds, because the Mother of God in 1917 had not predicted the German camps and condemned it in the name of the Son and of the whole Trinity. 1917 was the year in which Lenin came to power and the Communist monstrosity was allowed free rein, which devoured at least 100 million people and in implementing the most brutal and bloodiest repression of religion throughout history into action. A repression that took place in the name of the atheist state, because as such the Soviet Union and its satellites had been declared in their Constitutions. 

And as demonstrated by the studies of the German historian Ernst Nolte, that Nazism arose essentially as a direct response to Marxism-Leninism Without Lenin in 1917, there would have been no Hitler in 1933 without the October Revolution of St. Petersburg, the ideology of the Austrian painter would have remained limited to a small fanatical   group in the back room of Munich's restaurants. In as much as Our Lady warned of Communism at Fatima, she also warned of the other deadly ideologies, which go back directly or indirectly to Communism or stand in an interaction with this."

Bianchi's Grotesque from the "God of the Catholic Racism"

Bianchi and Cardonnel are "Grotesque" when they denounce Fatima as an expression of "a God of Catholic racism". "What kind of gossip is this?" asks Messori. Which apart from the fact that the vast majority of the victims of Lenin through Stalin to Gorbachev (who in his youth was also a persecutor) were not Catholics, but Orthodox, forget that the  all religions were present.  The papists were massacred like the priests, rabbis just as  imams or Buddhist masters. The same thing happened wherever communism came to power. And that happened exactly in that fateful year of 1917, when the Blessed Mother warned against this perverse ideology, precisely because then - just as now - presented itself in a noble guise with evangelical sounding words of justice, liberation, equality and fraternity. Words that were understood by the Communist, however, were proven without exception as demons, including the German regime, which even introduced itself by the name of socialism. "

The Austrian Example and the Atonement Crusade

Father Petrus Pavlicek

What is valid for Fatima  is what applies to all ecclesiastically recognized private revelations. One need not believe in them. They can therefore also be criticized."But this should be done in more informed and in more subtle ways," than as  it is done by Bianchi.

"And when speaking of Fatima and Communism, then Bianchi would do well to remember also Austria in the period between 1945 and 1955.   Because throughout the war,  the Soviet Union had shifted their influence far to the west and brought huge parts of Europe under its control, with permission first of Hitler, then with the permission of the western powers. At the end,,  the Red Army had occupied Berlin and Vienna. The Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, who had signed the Hitler-Stalin Pact in the summer of 1939, allowed Hitler the war against Poland, explained and repeated that the Soviet Union would not give up territory they occupied. It was therefore expected that in Austria the Communists would use military force to stay in power just as they had done  in Prague and Budapest, would usurp power by military force. Even in the western chancelleries this seemed to be assumed. No one wanted to start a new war on the other hand. But a Franciscan had not given up: Father Petrus Pavlicek. He first heard of Fatima in captivity. For his safe return from the war he undertook a pilgrimage of thanksgiving in 1946 and heard within  the voice that told him, 'Do what I tell you, and there will be peace.'" Pavlicek saw it as a connection with the apparitions of Fatima and founded the Expiatory Rosary Crusade for peace in the world and for the freedom of Austria.

Hundreds of thousands of Austrians joined him and prayed day and night for these intentions. Years went by, but the petitioners did not abate in their zeal. In 1955,  suddenly Austrian Chancellor was summoned by the Kremlin, where he was informed of the withdrawal of the Red Army from Austria. The western chancelleries were surprised by the decision which was so unexpected and above all was unprecedented and would not be repeated afterwards until the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989 in any other country. The signing of the State Treaty on 15 May 1955 brought the re-establishment of an independent and sovereign Austria. Politicians, diplomats and military around the world marveled. Those who had led the Expiatory Rosary Crusade praying for years, however, were not amazed. The date on which the Austrian Chancellor announced the withdrawal of the Red Army, was the 13th of May the anniversary of the first apparition of Fatima. The withdrawal of Soviet troops,  which most reluctantly granted such a beautiful and strategically important country, was completed in October of the same year, that same month which Catholic tradition dedicates to the Holy Rosary, since the Battle of Lepanto. "

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Wikicommons / RSK / CR

Dozens of Cuban Dissidents Detained During Pope Visit

Pope Francis and Raoul Castro

(Havana) They have asked for a meeting with Pope Francis. Emphatically. However, the communist Castro regime was not  prepared to make concessions. During the stay of Pope Francis on the Caribbean island,  dozens of Cuban dissidents were arrested.

Two of them are Marta Beatriz Roque, a former political prisoner, and Miriam Leiva, an independent journalist. The aim of their detention was to prevent them from participating in public events surrounding the Pope, for example,  Vespers in the Cathedral of Havana, at which  both Roque and Leiva wanted to participate. Both dissidents could produce personal invitations from the apostolic nunciature. Yet the Cuban security agencies were not impressed.

This is the other side of the Pope's visit to Cuba

Yet this shady side of the Pope's visit will not be reported by the mainstream media.

The reports of Roque and Leiva are largely identical. The actions of the State Security were carried out according to the same pattern. Both were surrounded on the open street by several police officers, put into a car and taken to an unknown place. There they were detained for hours   together with other persons.

Also, Berta Soler, the President of the Damas de Blanco, the Ladies in White, was temporarily arrested when she wanted to visit the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana to greet the Pope.

At least 50 dissidents arrested

Arrested dissident who wanted to get too close - according to the regime - to Pope Francis.

According to information from dissident circles, several dozen people were arrested during the Pope's visit. Some were jailed, others placed under house arrest, while others - like Roque and Leiva -  were detained without explanation for several hours. The detention lasted as long as the pope's public events lasted. The total  affected by the police action were at least 50 people.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi had - according to the correspondent of the Spanish daily El Pais - refused to comment on the news. "I have nothing to say", said the director of the Vatican Press Office, said El Pais.   Father Lombardi made ​​it clear that according to the program   a meeting with  Cuban dissidents was provided for. But he did not know why they did not appear on the agreed date. The Vatican spokesman also confirmed that the opposition had tried to greet the Pope "in passing." It's an experiment which has obviously failed. The communist regime was victorious once again.

For the dissidents there only remained the words that the Catholic Church leader uttered on his arrival in Cuba: "I would also like that my greeting reach especially those that I would not be able to meet for various reasons, and all scattered throughout the Cuban world" The statement has been interpreted that the pope meant the political prisoners and dissidents and the Cuban exiles.  Although many, too many, acted as if it applied neither to one nor the other, for them the Pope's visit ended before it had begun,"  said Corrispondenza Romana.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Corrispondenza Romana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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