Bishop Báez de Nicaragua denounces the problem of Latin American dictatorships and cartels

Nicaraguan Bishop Silvio Báez denounced, from exile in the United States, which he considered the “true problem” of Latin America dictatorships and cartels: the idolatry of money.

Although he did not mention any country in the homily of the Mass he presided this Sunday In the Santa Agatha Church in Miami, the Prelate would have referred to Daniel Ortega’s dictatorships in Nicaragua, Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, syndicated by the United States government as the leader of the Los Sol Cartel, dedicated to drug trafficking.

Mons. Báez recalled that one day “all, without exception, we will leave this world and God will ask us to account for how we have used wealth” and the gifts that he has given us. As an example of a misuse of these, the prelate urged to think “in the dictatorships of some of our countries, dictators who acting in the dark and without any moral scrupulous to enrich themselves at the expense of anything.”

“Let’s not forget that the root of the main problems of Latin America are not political, but moral,” he said.

The “true problem” of Latin American dictatorships and cartels

Báez also said that “most of the evils of our peoples come from the excessive ambition of wealth, of the domes that dominate power, because they worship money, no matter if they have to sacrifice human beings or the entire people with their dignity, their freedoms and their future.”

“This is the real problem of dictatorships and cartels and decadent societies of Latin America: the idol of money,” he denounced.

“These people, unscrupulous and immoral, are enriched through shameless acts of corruption, accumulating more and more money for them, for their family and for their surroundings,” the prelate continued.

“They openly confiscate, illegally, land and properties. They are imposed by repression and even grant concessions for the extraction of natural resources of the country to foreign powers, impoverishing their people and putting national sovereignty at risk. These immoral and evil people live consisting day and night.”

You cannot serve God and money

“Those of us who dream of new societies in which the great ideals of freedom, justice, peace, the defense of human rights shine, we must remember what Jesus tells us today in the last sentence of the Gospel text: God and money cannot be served,” continued the auxiliary bishop of Managua, in exile since 2019.

“The great evil of this world is the idolatry of the money that the place of God occupies and demands as sacrifice human beings,” he said.

After pointing out that “we must use money for the common good, not to serve money as if it were a God,” the bishop stressed that “instead of ambition and corruption, let’s revist of evangelical wisdom creating with the wealth solidarity networks of help to the poorest and of reciprocal collaboration to compromise together in the struggle for social change.”

In conclusion, the prelate ended, today’s Gospel “invites us not to divinize money and to act with spiritual intelligence and wisdom.”

Mons. Silvio José Báez Ortega is auxiliary bishop of Managua (Nicaragua) since the end of May 2009. He is 67 years old.

On April 23, 2019, being one of the most critical voices of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua, he left his homeland in the face of the persecution of the regime. He has been in exile for more than six years.

On August 23, Mons. Báez and two other bishops of Nicaragua were received in a hearing by Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican, who confirmed it in the position of Auxiliary Bishop of Managua.