Pope Francis lifts 29-year suspension on liberation theology icon

[hrmjustin]

Josephine McKenna

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Continuing a bid to revive a movement that was sidelined by his predecessors, Pope Francis has reinstated a Central American priest who was suspended by the Vatican in the 1980s for his involvement in the political activities of Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista movement.

The Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, 81, was suspended from his duties by St. John Paul II and recently wrote to Francis asking for that order to be revoked so he could celebrate Mass again before he died.

D’Escoto and three other dissident priests were suspended in 1985 for defying a church ban on clergy holding government jobs. The Sandinistas, who supported the “popular church” of liberation theology, overthrew the pro-American regime of Anastasio Somoza in 1979. D’Escoto served as Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 1979 to 1990.

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/08/04/liberation-theology-miguel-descoto-pope-francis/