Weekly Report - 06 August 2020 (WR-20-31)

Relations between the government and the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, tense at the best of times, took a turn for the worse this week when a fire in Managua cathedral consumed a sculpture of Jesus Christ brought to the country in 1638. Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo wasted no time in attributing the fire to candles, a hypothesis adopted by the police, but Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the archbishop of Managua, denounced “an act of terrorism to intimidate the Church”.