Overt and Incremental Attacks on Religious Freedom in Latin America

A panel of Latin American human rights activists discussed the challenges to religious freedom in three Latin American countries at the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C. on February 5. Kristina Arriaga, formerly Executive Director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Vice-Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom moderated the panel.

Cuba

Mario Felix Lleonart, a Cuban human rights activist and formerly a Baptist pastor in Cuba spoke first. He said that religious freedom violations in Cuba are not often noted by the wider world, and religious freedom advocates struggle to point them out. He referred to the work of the Patmos Institute as providing greater detail, which itself professes only a limited knowledge of the religious freedom violations which occur in Cuba. Any organization functioning inside a dictatorship has a limited capacity to gather information critical of any aspect of a regime, and as the institute notes, many people may prefer to remain silent. Arrests, interrogations, and detentions of religious leaders, confiscations of properties where religious groups meet, and cancellations of religious events are indicated as typical types of harassment. Open Doors International provides a similarly dismal report from the mid-2020s.

Lleonart said that in recent years “the legal situation in Cuba has only gotten more complicated.” The Communist Party is the paramount power, according to the Cuban constitution. It contains “the Office of Religious Affairs (ORA), which also exists to repress the church in Cuba.” But in 2022 the regime created a “Department of Attention to Religious Affairs” (OAAR). Religious freedom advocates therefore demanded that the Office of Religious Affairs be removed. But this did not happen, so now two offices exist to violate religious freedom in Cuba.

Additionally, the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom is worthless, because of the Communist Party is the supreme power. Cuba has had several constitutions since independence – in 1901, 1940, the 1959 Fundamental Law, 1976, and 2019. He said that the constitution which is furthest from religious liberty is the “most recent,” in 2019. This constitution “separated religious freedom from liberty of conscience.” While some consider the separate recognition of liberty of conscience an expansion of individual liberty, Lleonart seemed to have considered it a change at the expense of religious freedom.

Nicaragua

Arriaga then introduced Felix Maradiaga, co-Director of the Civil Society Leadership Institute in Central America and former General Secretary of the Nicaraguan Ministry of Defense: He said that under the increasingly dictatorial Ortega government in Nicaragua, there is not “just political repression,” but “a war” against religious freedom. It is nothing new. In the 1980s, the Sandinista government which Daniel Ortega headed and had recently seized power “attacked the church, by creating a parallel church.” Prominent members of the Catholic Church were appointed into the Sandinista regime, “creating a parallel narrative” to that of the church, using “a tactic of divide and conquer,” and also by trying to draw Protestant groups into the regime’s parallel religious narrative.

Today, approximately 250 religious leaders are in exile, 31 of which have been declared stateless, many clergy are in exile (70 percent in one diocese), and there are current clergy who are in prison and/or have been tortured. Several bishops who courageously stood against the regime have been forced into exile.

The Ortega regime has accused the Catholic Church of terrorism, financing political opposition, and using the churches to hide corruption. Nineteen Catholic Church properties have been confiscated, with a value of over $200 million dollars, Also, “four of the most prestigious private universities were Catholic, and have been expropriated.” The Jesuits, who opposed the Somoza regime in the 1970s and supported the Sandinistas in the 1980s have, under the current Ortega regime “been forced into exile as well.” Churches and cathedrals have been attacked, and the Way of the Cross procession during Holy Week prohibited. Even journalists have been sent to prison for reporting on religious persecution.

Maradiaga said that the Ortega regime wants to “suppress Christianity,” and to create “a parallel theological narrative” based on a “false gospel.” Anyone who disagrees with the new theological narrative is accused of being non-Christian. Some non-Catholic denominations have accepted demands that the state appoint pastors. The Catholic church has been able to resist this, but at this point 70 percent of its clergy are under attack by the state.

Maradiaga said that the Nicaraguan church needs the solidarity of journalists, intellectuals, and others from the general population to face this crisis. “Transnational” solidarity is also needed to be most effective in advancing religious freedom.

Mexico

Omar Sotelo, a Catholic priest and Director of the Catholic Multimedia Center (Spanish acronym CCM) said that “for the last fifteen years, Mexico has been the country where the most priests have been assassinated, and it is the country in the world where it is most dangerous to be a priest.” Much of the threat there is organized crime, as has been also noted by Open Doors International. “If organized crime can kill a priest, they can kill anyone … In recent years 80 priests have been assassinated. We have two priests that disappeared over ten years ago. More than 26 churches have been attacked weekly in Mexico. Violence has occurred there, and there have been ‘unsacred acts’ performed in these churches.”

‘The reason for this is very clear,” he said. “A priest is assassinated because he is a priest. The function of the priest is in many ways to stabilize society. We know that the job of the priest is not only pastoral, the job of the priest is also to protect human rights, to protect children, to educate them … I was once asked by journalists ‘why are they killing priests?’ And the answer was clear, when you kill a priest, you not only kill one person, you kill an entire institution. And when you eliminate or kill an institution you destabilize society … organized crime can plant in a community first of all the whole idea of fear and terror. They want to silence the Catholic Church. They want to silence pastoral activity. And they want to eliminate it. In communities when this happens …  it creates a narco-culture, a narco-economy, a narco-politics … This is a direct attack on religious freedom … It should also concern all Latin Americans, and of course, the United States. There is a community of priests in Mexico that are raising awareness about the situation. I am a priest, but I am also a journalist. And in Mexico, both priests and journalists are getting assassinated … This reality is not only growing, but it is overflowing into other communities.”

Defending the Catholic Church

Marcela Szymanski of Aid to the Church in Need spoke next. She is ACN Head of International Advocacy and Editor-in-Chief of ACN Religious Freedom Report.  She said that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 18 covers religious freedom. It asserts a right to religious freedom in both public and private. In particular, it guarantees the right of parents “to educate their children according to their own beliefs.”

Autocrats are often behind religious persecution, she said. They may not be the individuals identified as the head of government, but their power is nonetheless real. They may simply be the ones with “more money or more weapons.” Agents with coercive power, whether an autocrat or organized crime, can be a source of persecution. Some Latin American countries (she noted Argentina in particular) mention God in their constitutions, and have fairly strong protections for religious freedom, others less so.

Autocrats fear religious leaders most, since they are alternative sources of authority. When religious liberty is denied, other rights are likely to be denied. Autocrats may try to “co-opt” particular religious leaders into their regime or play one religious group against another. A worrying trend is that eleven countries in Latin America are governed by leaders or parties that are inclined to be socialist or Marxist. Other countries are moving politically leftward. 437,000,000 people live in these socialist dominated countries, while 427,000,000 live in countries that are non-socialist. Believers must “take responsibility for the survival of our faith.”   

Summarizing the Situation

Arriaga then queried panelists about different topics. She asked what recent legislation affects freedom of religion and belief in the country they reviewed.

Lleonart said that in Cuba, there is an office, not to facilitate religious freedom, but to suppress religious freedom. “This office is embedded in the governmental structure of Cuba.” The important thing is for religious groups in Cuba to have “some space for their communities.” If problems arise, these communities should be able to tell international religious freedom advocates that they have attempted to work through the legal system to resolve their problems.  

Maradiaga said that Nicaragua’s new constitution says that basically every institution in the country has the duty to defend the Sandinista ideology. Any institution that engages in freedom of thought “will be considered an anti-patriotic entity.” Secondly, the new constitution gives the government authority to suspend individual rights for reasons of national security. “Many priests have been arrested using this law.” A third law forces charities or any institution that receives charitable contributions to register with the government. A fourth law is a “cybercrime” law that says anything posted online may be used to arrest the author(s). This can be used to arrest priests, and thus most dioceses have shut down their web sites. Another law forces banks to disclose to the government financial information of “any entity that has a bank account” (including churches). Yet another law, applicable especially to Evangelical churches, requires them “to appoint board members that have been vetted [and] approved by the regime.”

Sotelo said that 80 percent of clergy assassinations in Mexico “have been done with total impunity.” So this is obviously a serious violation of religious freedom. “In Mexico a priest is a second-rate citizen,” Soleto stated. “There is freedom of worship, but not freedom of religion in Mexico. Publicly, the government officially has a good relationship with the Catholic Church. But the government funds or supports organizations that are actively opposing the work of the church … and have actually participated in the violations of religious freedom that I have been speaking about.”

Szymanski said that “autocrats are gaining power in the entire region.” Autocrats may be elected or not, but they are in power “because they have the most weapons and the most money.” Autocrats will combine violent with non-violent measures to undermine religious authority. Included among these strategies is the use of trans-national authorities, such as the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, to impose policies that are not in the national law and not “in the culture of the people.” These transnational authorities tend to favor the state “over individual rights.”  Formerly, it was held that religious freedom could be limited only for reasons of public health and public order, but now there are many new limitations. Another trend is “setting aside the rights of parents to educate their children according to their values and beliefs.” In the name of the rights of the child, the state can intervene to undermine parental authority, for instance, in the choice of the child’s religion.

Arriaga summarized the panelists’ comments by saying that in Cuba and Nicaragua, laws and policies directly attack religious freedom. In Mexico, the government seems friendly to official religion, but in fact is funding organizations opposed to the Church’s teachings. Throughout Latin America, international human rights law (or simply trans-national agency interpretations of it) is used to impose agendas which are not in the law, and against the values and beliefs of the people.

Questions

In a question-and-answer section, it was asked that if priests are being assassinated in Mexico, what is happening to Evangelical pastors? Also, with the new Mexican administration will there be more protection for priests? Has Pope Francis been supportive of the church in Nicaragua? Finally, are the new commissioners of U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) aware of the situation in Cuba and Nicaragua? These, it was said, should be State Department Countries of Particular Concern.

Sotelo said that “we have watched increased assassinations against Catholic priests.” The new Mexican administration seems “friendly, but it remains to be seen what it will actually do. In regards to Protestant pastors … we have anecdotal evidence … that many Evangelical and Protestant pastors have not only been attacked by the same system of organized crime, but they have also been expelled from their home communities.”

Maradiaga said that “Pope Francis has issued sixteen statements condemning the persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. But it’s a very delicate position, because the regime in Nicaragua, the Sandinista dictatorship, has retaliated each statement with a new imprisonment, with a new expulsion. In fact the closure of the Catholic University of Nicaragua and the shutdown of Catholic radio, etc., each of these was in retaliation for a papal statement.” So the Pope has become less frank in his statements, and this has in turn been criticized by those who want to see him take a stronger position. The Pope wants to protect the communities in Nicaragua in their access to a priest with one of the remaining priests in the country.

Lleonart said he would like to thank USCIRF commissioners for their work, and that Cuba and Nicaragua should remain countries of particular concern. He said that Venezuela should be added to the list. Venezuela is a copy of Cuba and Nicaragua, he said. Recently two political prisoners who were on the Frank Wolf List of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom were released. But in fact there were “excarcerated.” They are now in their homes, but “they’re constantly threatened.” They can be imprisoned “at any time.” Additionally, Lleonart said there are other names that should be on the Frank Wolf List. The names on the list should be our heroes, heroes of religious freedom in their countries and in the world.  

Conclusion

This article covers three of the four countries reviewed the article on last year’s IRF Summit panel on Latin America. In Cuba, which most Americans would recognize as a communist dictatorship, there is a continued dismal situation, with the government suppressing the religious freedom many Cubans want. Nicaragua and Mexico seem to be deteriorating situations, in the former case by direct attack from a hostile government, in the latter by a government superficially committed to religious freedom but really committed to a secular liberalism incompatible with Christianity, and also unable to control hostile non-state actors in the countryside. These situations merit concern by our State Department, although it is likely only with Nicaragua or Mexico is there any American leverage. But Christians should certainly be aware and pray for these countries and provide help where possible.