Nicaragua RELIGION
Views of Managua, with Lago de Managua in the background
Courtesy Nina Serafino
In the early 1990s, the vast majority of Nicaraguans
were
nominally Roman Catholic. Many had little contact with
their
church, however, and the country's Protestant minority was
expanding rapidly. Roman Catholicism came to Nicaragua in
the
sixteenth century with the Spanish conquest and remained,
until
1939, the established faith. The Roman Catholic Church was
accorded privileged legal status, and church authorities
usually
supported the political status quo. Not until the
anticlerical
General José Santos Zelaya (1893-1909) came to power was
the
position of the church seriously challenged.
Nicaraguan constitutions have provided for a secular
state
and guaranteed freedom of religion since 1939, but the
Roman
Catholic Church has retained a special status in
Nicaraguan
society. When Nicaraguans speak of "the church," they mean
the
Roman Catholic Church. The bishops are expected to lend
their
authority to important state occasions, and their
pronouncements
on national issues are closely followed. They can also be
called
upon to mediate between contending parties at moments of
political crisis. A large part of the education system, in
particular the private institutions that serve most upper-
and
middle-class students, is controlled by Roman Catholic
bodies.
Most localities, from the capital to small rural
communities,
honor patron saints, selected from the Roman Catholic
calendar,
with annual fiestas. Against this background, it is not
surprising that the Sandinista government provided free
public
transportation so that 500,000 Nicaraguans, a substantial
part of
the national population, could see Pope John Paul II when
he
visited Managua in 1983
(see
The Growth of Opposition, 1981-83
, ch. 1).
Despite the leading position of the Roman Catholic
Church, it
touches the lives of most Nicaraguans only sporadically at
best.
The activities and resources of the church are
concentrated in
the cities. Although the church attempts to reach people
in small
towns and rural areas, its capacity to do so is limited.
In the
mid-1980s, there was approximately 1 priest for every
7,000 Roman
Catholics, a ratio lower than the Latin American average
and
considerably lower than the 1 priest per 4,550 Nicaraguan
Roman
Catholics recorded in 1960.
Urbanites, women, and members of the upper and middle
classes
are the most likely to be practicing Roman Catholics, that
is
those who attend mass, receive the sacraments, and perform
special devotions with some degree of regularity.
Nicaraguans of
the lower classes tend to be deeply religious but not
especially
observant. Many limit their practice of the sacraments to
baptism
and funeral rites. Yet they have a strong belief in divine
power
over human affairs, which is reflected in the use of
phrases such
as "God willing" or "if it is God's desire" in discussions
of
future events.
Religious beliefs and practices of the masses, although
more
or less independent of the institutional church, do not
entail
the syncretic merger of Roman Catholic and pre-Columbian
elements
common in some other parts of Latin America. Popular
religion
revolves around the saints, who are perceived as
intermediaries
between human beings and God. Prayers are directed to a
relevant
saint asking for some benefit, such as curing an illness,
in
exchange for ritual payment, such as carrying a cross in
an
annual procession. Pictures of saints, called
cuadros, are
commonly displayed in Nicaraguan homes. Set in a corner or
on a
table and surrounded with candles, flowers, or other
decorations,
a cuadro becomes the centerpiece of a small
domestic
shrine. In many communities, a rich lore has grown up
around the
celebrations of patron saints, such as Managua's Saint
Dominic
(Santo Domingo), honored in August with two colorful,
often
riotous, day-long processions through the city's
lower-class
neighborhoods. The high point of Nicaragua's religious
calendar
for the masses is neither Christmas nor Easter, but La
Purísima, a week of festivities in early December
dedicated
to the Immaculate Conception, during which elaborate
altars to
the Virgin Mary are constructed in homes and workplaces.
Protestantism and other Christian sects came to
Nicaragua
during the nineteenth century, but only during the
twentieth
century have Protestant denominations gained large
followings in
the western half of the country. By 1990 more than 100
non-Roman
Catholic faiths had adherents in Nicaragua, of which the
largest
were the Moravian Church, the Baptist Convention of
Nicaragua,
and the Assemblies of God. Other denominations included
the
Church of God, the Church of the Nazarene, the Episcopal
Church,
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons),
Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Seventh Day Adventists. Most
of
these churches have been established through the efforts
of
missionaries from the United States and, although now
institutionally independent and led by Nicaraguans, retain
strong
links with members of the same denomination in the United
States.
The Moravian Church, established in eastern
Nicaragua in
the late nineteenth century, is the dominant faith among
the non-
Hispanic population of the region. Virtually all Miskito
are
Moravians, as are many Creoles, Sumu, and Rama. Moravian
pastors
play a prominent leadership role in Miskito communities.
The
Nicaraguan Baptists are related to the American Baptist
Church,
which began missionary work in 1917. The Nicaraguan
Baptist
Church's membership is concentrated in the Pacific region
and is
heavily middle class.
The Assemblies of God, dating from 1926, is the largest
of
the rapidly expanding Pentecostal denominations. Known for
ecstatic forms of worship, energetic evangelization, and
the
strict personal morality demanded of members, the
Pentecostal
faiths are flourishing among the urban and rural poor. By
helping
recent arrivals from the countryside adjust to city life,
they
draw many migrants into their congregations.
Pentecostalism
reportedly has particular appeal to poor women because it
elicits
sobriety and more responsible family behavior from men.
Largely
because of the Pentecostals, the long-stagnant Protestant
population has accelerated in numbers, going from 3
percent of
the national population in 1965 to more than 20 percent in
1990.
It could easily surpass 30 percent in the 1990s.
The 1970s and 1980s were years of religious ferment in
Nicaragua, often coupled with political conflict.
Encouraged by
the spirit of liberal renovation then sweeping through
Latin
American Catholicism, a new generation of Nicaraguan Roman
Catholic Church officials and lay activists tried to make
the
Roman Catholic Church more democratic, more worldly in its
concerns, and more sensitive to the plight of the poor
majority.
Many were inspired by the radical doctrines of
Liberation Theology (see Glossary)
and the related idea of
consciousness-
raising Christian base communities (small groups of people
from
an urban slum or rural district who met regularly to read
the
Bible together and reflect on social conditions). In the
1970s,
priests, nuns, and lay workers committed to social change
organized community development projects, education
programs, and
Roman Catholic base communities. Especially after 1972,
Roman
Catholic clergy and lay activists were increasingly drawn
into
the movement opposed to the regime of Anastasio Somoza
Debayle.
Many developed links with the Sandinista National
Liberation
Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional--FSLN),
which was
very receptive to radicalized Roman Catholics and led the
insurrection that finally toppled the dictator.
No previous Latin American revolution has had such
broad
religious support as that of the Sandinistas. Even the
Roman
Catholic bishops openly backed the anti-Somoza movement in
its
final phases. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Roman
Christian Base Communities (Comunidades Eclesiásticas de
Base--
CEBs) provided the FSLN with vital political support among
the
urban poor. Roman Catholics, including several priests,
accepted
positions in the new government and became members of the
Sandinista party. But the close ties between Sandinistas
and
Roman Catholics generated tensions within the Roman
Catholic
Church and between the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the
FSLN. The
bishops, led by Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, accused
the
Sandinistas and their Roman Catholic supporters of
attempting to
divide the church by creating a separate Popular Church
out of
the CEBs. They viewed the Marxist-oriented FSLN as a
long-term
threat to religion in Nicaragua, despite the professed
tolerance
of the Sandinistas. An explosive church-state conflict
developed,
during which the bishops more or less openly allied with
the
Sandinistas' political enemies and the FSLN struggled
vainly to
contain the influence of the institutional church.
Throughout the
1980s, pro- and anti-Sandinista forces regularly
manipulated
religious symbols for political effect.
Protestant leaders were less inclined than the Roman
Catholic
episcopate to become embroiled in conflicts with the
Sandinistas.
Some, including prominent Baptist ministers and a minority
of
pastors from other faiths, were sympathetic to the FSLN.
At the
other extreme, a few Moravian ministers openly identified
with
Miskito Contra forces operating from Honduras. Most
Pentecostal
leaders, reflecting the conservative attitudes of the
United
States denominations with which they were affiliated, were
cool
toward the Sandinistas but generally adopted a public
stance that
was apolitical. Suspecting that the United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Christian conservatives in
the
United States were promoting evangelical activity in
Nicaragua to
undercut their government, Sandinista authorities
monitored and
tried to intimidate certain Pentecostal leaders. They did
not,
however, attempt to limit the growth of normal religious
activity. The expansion of the Protestant population
actually
accelerated under Sandinista rule. During the first five
years of
Sandinista government, the number of evangelical churches
(largely Pentecostal) had doubled to 3,000.
By the time the Sandinistas left power in 1990,
church-state
relations were considerably smoother than they had been in
the
early 1980s and mid-1980s, in part because the Contra war,
which
intensified conflict over religion, was winding down. Some
of the
radicalized Roman Catholics who had supported the
Sandinistas in
the years since the 1970s remained loyal to them, but
their
influence outside the Sandinista movement and a few
religious
think tanks was limited. The number of active CEBs plunged
in the
early 1980s and never recovered, in part because the
bishops had
systematically restricted the church-based activities of
pro-
Sandinista clergy. The Pentecostal churches continued
their rapid
growth among the poor, eclipsing the radical branch of
Roman
Catholicism and challenging the Roman Catholic Church's
traditional religious monopoly. By the early 1990s, the
Pentecostal minority was large enough to cause some
observers,
aware of the recent role of Christian conservatives in
United
States politics, to speculate about the influence of
Pentecostals
in future Nicaraguan elections.
Data as of December 1993
|