This is a post in the Newsletter Category…
The Catholic Church has had a great influence on people in Latin America as people there have always been very religious. However, people’s attitude towards Rome as well as the Pope changed in the 1980s in Nicaragua. Socioeconomic situation in the country became intolerable for thousands of people who had to polarized society where rich people were supported by the Catholic Church in Rome while some Catholic priests started supporting people’s struggle against the social oppression and even helped Marxist (Berntzen, 2012). Hundreds of people had been killed on both sides and everybody was waiting for peace and justice. The visit of John Paul II was seen as a possible way to console people but everybody’s hope vanished during the mass held in the central square of Managua.
It is necessary to look back and shed more light on the position of the Catholic Church and John Paul II. The Pope was Polish and he learnt about Communist and Marxist approaches from his own sad experiences so he was strongly against any demonstration of this social paradigm (Moss, 2008). This fact can explain the Pope’s strict position and unwillingness to show any support to a liberation-theology proponents (Kraul & Chu, 2005).