Francisco absolves Ernesto Cardenal | The pope excels …

The Nicaraguan priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal was "absolved of all canonical censorship imposed", according to a decision now adopted by Pope Francis, 35 years after his sanction by John Paul II, in 1984, with the suspension of the ministry's political activism In the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) Cardinal, now 94, is admitted to the Vivian Pellas hospital in Nicaragua's kidney-affected capital, and although his health is fragile, he does not need This is the fifth time that the Nicaraguan poet enters a sanatorium in the last 14 months.

In a statement, the Vatican Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua, Stanislaw Waldemar Sommertag, said the pope had adopted the decision, taking into account that "the religious accepted the canonical punishment inflicted on him and that He has always followed it, without exercising any pastoral activity, and he has also abandoned all political commitment for many years, "the statement of the Holy See said.

Following the ecclesiastical sanction imposed on him, the cardinal did not engage in pastoral activities, nor did he celebrate the sacramental liturgy or confer other sacraments in the past 35 years.

Once known the acquittal, which had already been advanced Sunday, Cardinal immediately held the mbad of his bed at the hospital, as evidenced by videos and photos broadcast on social networks by people close to the hospital. priest.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II sentenced Ernesto Cardenal, his brother Fernando, a Jesuit priest, and the priest Miguel D 'Escoto, all of whom were enrolled in the FSLN and ministered to the government. headed by Daniel Ortega, who also holds the presidency of Nicaragua. On this occasion and for similar reasons, the priest Edgar Parrales was also punished by the ecclesiastical authorities. He resigned from the priesthood in 1985 to devote himself to the legal profession and to teaching.

In 1983, during the visit of the Polish Pope to Nicaragua, a photo by which John Paul II anticipated what would become a sanction was produced. At Managua airport, on his knees, Ernesto Cardenal greeted the pope while Karol Wojtila pointed his index finger. It was an image that roamed the world and anticipated what would later be ecclesiastical sanction.

In August 2014, Francisco had already lifted the sentences handed down against Fernando Cardenal, Sandinista's former minister of education, who died later in February 2016. Fernando Cardenal had resigned from Sandinismo in 1990 and joined since 1997 the Society of Jesus. Something similar happened with Escoto, former Chancellor of Sandinismo, acquitted by Francisco in 2014, when the priest asked him himself. He died on June 8, 2017.

The sanctions against the priests who were important Sandinista cadres were part of an offensive against the spokesmen of the so-called Latin American "liberation theology", defended by the most conservative sectors of the Catholic Church and endorsed by John Paul II, said today saint for Francisco.

A month before his last hospitalization for health reasons, Ernesto Cardenal published his book Children of the Stars and soon announced another collection of poems. The writer, who as a religious is part of a monastic congregation (Trappists) is one of Nicaragua's most internationally recognized and internationally recognized writers. His first works are Ansias and Language of New Nicaraguan Poetry (1948), Hora 0 (1956) and Epigramas (1961). In 1965, he published Prayer for Marilyn Monroe and other poems, in the Psalms of 1967 and 1975, The Gospel in Solentiname, in a literary production that extends to the present.

Cardinal's works have been translated into twenty languages ​​and the author has received numerous awards for his work. The French government awarded him the title of Officer of the Legion of Honor. Last December, he received the International Mario Benedetti Prize, awarded by Uruguay, the Ibero-American Poetry Prize Pablo Neruda and in 2012 the Queen Sofia Prize for Ibero-American Poetry. In 2010, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In 2014, in an interview with German television after receiving the Theodor Wanner Prize in Berlin, Ernesto Cardenal declared that "Pope Francis is making a revolution" in the Catholic Church.

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