[Mrs. Don-o]

On the airport runway in Managua, Nicaragua,in 1983,
Pope John Paul II admonishes Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, SJ

[miss marmelstein]

Thanks, Mrs. Don-o! What a time that was - Reagan, John-Paul and Thatcher. Will we ever see those times again - in our lifetime???

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oops, my error: Cardenal is not a SJ. He used to be a OCSO (Trappist monk, Order of Cistercians of Strict Observance, like Thomas Merton) --- by the time he joined the Sandinista government he was not a monk but was still a priest, and I don't know where he was incarinated. (WHich means I don't know whether he was still in a religious order, or if he was under a regular diocesan bishop) --- in any case, he was still a priest. Pope JP2 had ordered him to quit the Sandinista government, and he had refused.

He seems to have gone through some ideological changes, however. Cardenal left the FSLN in 1994, protesting the authoritarian direction of the party under Daniel Ortega. Before the 2006 Nicaraguan election, Cardenal stated, "I think an authentic capitalism, as Montealegre's (Eduardo Montealegre, the presidential candidate) would be more desirable than a false Revolution".