A revolutionary priest tells his story

FAITH & JOY: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Priest, by Fernando Cardenal SJ.  Orbis Books, US. 2015. 254pp

Reviewed by Paddy Kearney

This is an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. It begins at the point where Fr Fernando Cardenal, a Nicaraguan born in 1932, was finishing his Jesuit formation by taking part, at his own request, in a tertianship programme in Colombia, where he was exposed to great injustice and poverty.

His tertianship programme in the very poor Medellin neighbourhood of Paul VI proved to be a life-changing experience for him. Most of the people in the Paul VI neighbourhood were unemployed and desperately looking for any sort of work. Social services were just about non-existent in this shack settlement , and there was no access to medical attention. Cardenal felt acutely the suffering of this community he had quickly came to love.  When the end of his nine-month tertianship arrived, he made a commitment to this poverty-stricken community that “wherever I am sent in the future, I am going to work for justice, for the building of a new society, for the liberation of the poor in Latin America”.

Once again there was a change of plans. He was appointed vice-president for student affairs at the Jesuit University of Central America in Managua, the capital of his native Nicaragua.

Given Cardenal’s passion for justice, he quickly associated himself with student protests over greater dialogue about how the university was run. When the students decided to occupy the university offices to make their point, Cardenal supported their strategy, which inevitably alienated him from his superiors.

That protest over, Cardenal’s situation became even more difficult when the students decided to occupy the Managua cathedral to call for the release of some of their colleagues detained by the National Guard.

The diocese and the papal nuncio wanted to suspend Cardenal and other priests involved in the students’ takeover of the cathedral  and eventual hunger strike, but the Jesuit community and a number of diocesan priests opposed this step. But Cardenal was told to leave the staff of the university.

Cardenal had supported the occupations of the university and cathedral because he saw these as justifiable non-violent ways of protesting against the brutal dictatorship of the Nicaraguan President, Somoza. His view was that, if the students were barred from protesting in this way, their only alternative would be to resort to violence.

After his expulsion from the University of Central America, the Jesuits found another post for Cardenal in a college they ran in Managua. This gave him time and opportunity to raise awareness of the injustices of the Nicaraguan situation through addressing major Church organisations. Central to all his efforts was work with young people, his lifelong passion. He has used every opportunity to help them see the connection between faith and the struggle for justice.

In the midst of a second seizure of the Managuan cathedral in 1972, there was an earthquake that within seconds caused 10000 deaths and the destruction of central Managua. In the wake of the earthquake Cardenal set up a Christian Revolutionary Movement with young people. What they tried to impress upon the population was that poverty was a result of unjust structures which could be changed, unlike the destruction caused by the earthquake over which people could have no control.

It was not long before Cardenal’s revolutionary efforts with the youth brought him to the attention of the left-wing Sandinistas who invited him to become a “militant member”. Cardenal accepted to join the movement, whose aim was to overthrow Somoza, on the basis of his understanding of the Gospel and the commitment he had made at Medellin, putting “all that was mine at the service of the liberation of my people”.

Fr Fernando Cardenal in 2014. (CNS photo/Tom Boswell via National Catholic Reporter)

His usefulness to the Sandinistas became immediately clear when he gave evidence on Nicaraguan human rights violations at Congressional hearings in Washington — which led to US military aid to Somoza being cut off just months later.

Cardenal’s next major role was as one of the so-called “Group of Twelve” highly respected members of the Nicaraguan elite who would be more successful than the Sandinistas in securing the support of rank and file Nicaraguans to form alliances against Somoza. The Group of Twelve would also be tasked with organising a new government and drafting the new laws needed when the Somoza regime was toppled.

When the dictatorship had been overthrown and the Sandinistas were in power, Cardenal refused an appointment as ambassador to Washington, and instead headed the hugely successful national literacy campaign. In a way it was a job he had waited for throughout his life.  The result was that the rate of illiteracy decreased from at least 52% to 12,9%. No doubt Cardenal would call the campaign the highlight of his whole life.

However the Nicaraguan bishops and some people in the Vatican had a major problem with what Cardenal was doing. They recalled that Canon 285 prohibits priests from working in government posts. But he also had support from at least one very high-ranking cleric, Pope John Paul II’s  secretary of state Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, who thought that the Nicaraguan situation was a clear case in which an exception might be made to Canon 285.

Pope John Paul II saw things differently, especially when Cardenal went on to become education minister in the Sandinista cabinet. John Paul had famously wagged his finger at Fernando’s brother Fr Ernesto, rather than giving him a blessing when they met at Managua airport. Now he put much pressure on Cardenal’s Jesuit superiors, especially superior-general Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, who eventually buckled and dismissed Cardenal from the order, though not without stressing his high regard for him.

A remarkable aspect of Cardenal’s clash with ecclesiastical authorities is how he always carefully consulted his religious community and superiors as he made each important decision about his future, and how they were generally most supportive. Even after he had ceased to be officially a Jesuit, he continued to live in the same Jesuit community, a situation unanimously accepted by the community, and he also continued to observe his vow of celibacy.

Throughout his life from the time of his ordination right through to the present his identity has always been that of a religious and a priest.

When the Sandinistas lost the first election after they had seized power, Cardenal began to notice many instances of serious corruption and fraud in the leadership. It took him many years to speak out about such practices, but once he started he did so with vigour. However he felt his words were having no effect and so he decided to withdraw from his membership of the Sandinista Front

Even before he had renounced his Sandinista membership, Fr Kolvenbach had confided in him that the Society had decided to invite him back into their membership. He would be the only Jesuit in the order’s history to be expelled and then readmitted.

“Young people”, he writes, “need two conditions to become agents of change. First, they need a noble and significant cause that inspires them, and second, they need credible people with moral authority leading that cause.”

Certainly they have found both conditions fulfilled in the life and work of Fr Fernando Cardenal SJ as recounted in this impressive, fascinating and challenging autobiography which was published only months before his death at 82 on February 20, 2016.