He's Back and He's a Roman Catholic

Hat tip to Geralad Augustinus over at Cafeteria is Closed for this one.

Daniel Ortega, former Sandinista commandante, Cold War warrior from the losing side, darling of the New York Times and fashion model for designer eyewear from the 1980s was elected President of Nicaragua.

DANIEL ORTEGA of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) was elected President of Nicaragua this week, after 16 years in opposition. With more than 90 per cent of the votes counted by the night of 7 November, his main opponent, conservative businessman Eduardo Montealegre, conceded defeat by the former left-wing revolutionary, who has become a fervent Catholic.

Ortega, 61, who was at daggers drawn with the Church hierarchy when he was president in the 1980s - he accused them of being hand-in-glove with the CIA - will now be called upon to demonstrate that he really has undergone a Damascene conversion from fiery radical to purveyor of peace, love and reconciliation between erstwhile enemies. He will be well aware that, with just 38 per cent of the votes, far more people voted against him than for him, and he spoke this week of promoting a "new political culture" of constructive cooperation between people of differing views.

Ortega has long won over Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the elder statesman of the Nicaraguan Church, who hailed Ortega as the only politician who could heal the wounds of the past and reunite the country. The cardinal performed a marriage ceremony for him and his long-term partner, Rosario Murillo, in Managua Cathedral last year.

Daniel can engineer some social justice working to impose the social reign of Christ the King. The Church has always had a "preferential treatment for the poor" clause to her social teaching. You see, Daniel, if you want to help the poor, then Christ is there. He's so much more efficatious then syphillitic 19th Century athiests from Germany.

The piece de resistance is something that I have to admit passed right through my radar screen and something which deserves a posting in its own right: Nicaragua has criminalised all abortions.

After 20 odd years of its daliance with athiestic socialism and then 20 more of corporate capitalism with the usual U.N. social engineering I suspect it was beginning to dawn on the Nicaraguans: Our economy is still in a shambles, our populace has either fled to the United States or has been mudered in the womb.

Three things to note:

#1 The deceit of the Tablet Journalist who improperly interprets the ArchBishop of Managua's neutrality in the election as opposition. Tisk, tisk. I suspect all the candidates were Roman Catholics (well, practicing ones.)

#2 Losing the endorsement of former Sandinista, long time communist and purveyor of heretical liberation theology, Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, is hardly a chink in one's Roman Catholic armour.

#3 If Sandinista Daniel Ortega comes back as a Roman Catholic does that mean the surving members of the Clash are going to issue an album of Gregorian Chant?