Nicaragua
Memories of a committed generation
About 800 Catholic nuns work in Nicaragua.
Many weren’t born here but have
accompanied the very poor for years.
And here they stay.
Why did they decide to become nuns?
How have they felt living among us?
What have they done?
What did they bring our country and people?
Do they feel they satisfied?
I was able to get eight testimonies,
not without difficulty due to their deeply felt modesty.
These are stories of daily, intense, quiet,
almost anonymous solidarity.
William Grigsby Vergara
In early May, 800 nuns, mother superiors of their orders, met in Rome for the general assembly of the International Union of Mother Superiors. Pope Francis received them briefly in the Paul VI Hall for a 15-minute private audience. In his message he told them among other things that “you always know how to exercise authority by accompanying, understanding, helping and loving everyone, especially those who feel alone, excluded, arid and on the existential periphery of the human heart…. What would the Church be without you? It would lack a mother’s care, affection, tenderness and intuition.”
In truth, what would it be? The religious women, the sisters, more than double the number of priests in the Catholic Church and are present in the most unimaginable places of service, but not in places of decision-making. According to 2012 Vatican statistics, there are slightly more than 410,000 priests today and just over 720,000 nuns. Silent, and often silenced by the Church’s patriarchal power structure, these women keep alive the hope of millions of poor throughout the world and build a better world by doing very important tasks without giving themselves importance. In Nicaragua they are all over the country but we hear little from them. They don’t shout denunciations, preferring to cultivate hope. They do this as mothers, sisters, friends, educators, doctors and companions on the road.
Pilar, 76, Sisters of the Assumption:
“A decision that changed my life”I was born in Spain and have been in Nicaragua for 35 years, although coming and going because I’ve also worked in El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Cuba. When I was a girl I read a magazine that talked about the poverty in Africa. From that time on I dreamed of going to work with the poor in that afflicted continent. My first calling was to be a missionary. In 1959, when the Cuban revolution triumphed, I was still in my formative educational years in Spain. The Mother Superior asked for volunteers to come to Latin America to work. At that time Communism was considered something awful and scary. Maybe because of that, I wanted to be near Cuba’s revolutionary process, in order to know it up close. Besides, I knew missionaries over here and this encouraged me to cross the ocean. They accepted my proposal. I was 25 years old and this decision changed my life.
I traveled with the hope of staying in Guatemala to work with the indigenous population. But that’s not what happened. I arrived in Nicaragua in 1961, during the Somoza years. From the time I stepped on Nicaraguan soil I felt welcomed. Nicaraguans opened the doors to their homes and hearts and gave me the gift of friendship. From the first moment I was captivated by their way of being, their kindness, especially the kindness of the poor. I’ve never felt a stranger in Nicaragua.
“I’ve planted this seed”In Guatemala I studied pedagogy. In León, Nicaragua, we had a big school near the Cathedral. Although we witnessed the first protests against the dictator, none of us had much contact with the country’s most crucial reality. I left Nicaragua for several years and returned in 1977, by which time the environment was already very hot and demonstrations against the dictatorship were massive and violently repressed. In those years I worked in the eastern neighborhoods of Managua with the poorest. Managua was burning and the winds of war swept through the streets. The first shoot-out caught me in the San Judas neighborhood. Bullets bounced off the walls. On one side was the deafening noise of the National Guard’s armored tanks and on the other revolutionary young men shooting rifles, yelling slogans and manning barricades built with the large paving stones. I was never afraid. I always felt on the side of the poor.
During the eighties I lived the revolutionary process. Looking back on it today I can say that those were the most fertile times for our congregational order. We religious women were with the revolution because of its objective of change, because it gave priority to the excluded and wanted to educate the people. The years of the revolution were the hardest and also the most beautiful. Today it’s very gratifying to me to see the fruits of that great collective effort. During those years a call went out to various religious orders to come to Nicaragua to support social change. The response was very positive and the majority came and stayed, though some left because they said the revolution was Communism and they were against that.
At times they criticized us a lot. They called us “The People’s Church.” I have some criticisms of the revolution but as a process of change I think it was a great opportunity to do a lot for the poor. For many years I was director of the Asunción School in Leon and I’m aware of the great work we did in those years. I know people in their forties today who have a profession, who are in solidarity and participate every day in the struggle for the most disadvantaged and they do it responsibly and with great human spirit.
To sow the seed of service in these people is my greatest satisfaction. I sowed this seed with the friendships I made, the religious teachings I gave, my pastoral work with youth, accompanying young women in many activities including the famous cotton harvests… I now have many women who are mothers of families and professionals who are very committed to this country. Yes, I feel I sowed many seeds.
Lucía, 71, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur:
“We responded to whatever need we came across”I was born in San Francisco, California, and have lived in Nicaragua for 32 years. I was always attracted by everything religious and also by a desire to accompany people who suffer injustices and are in need.
I started doing volunteer work in schools for children with cerebral palsy when I was nine. I saw how these children fought to accept their disabilities and recognize their worth as people but I noticed that the majority had no knowledge of religious values and I knew these values would help them be strong, accept themselves and discover the meaning of their lives. I decided to choose a life in which I could help others recognize these values and accompany victims of injustice. For these reasons I entered religious life at 18 years of age when I finished high school.
I arrived in Nicaragua at the beginning of the revolution, responding to a call by the Nicaraguan bishops and the Nicaraguan Conference of the Religious (CONFER) to accompany the Nicaraguan people in rebuilding the country. We wanted to learn about Nicaragua, a country in which people wanted to build a just society for all and eliminate poverty and ignorance. At that time Nicaragua seemed a light for the whole world. We arrived with many illusions about contributing to the building of a different world. At the beginning, when we started working in Siuna, there was some distrust by the local authorities. They speculated that, since we were from the United States, we might have connections with the CIA. But that passed and afterward we had no more major obstacles.
Living in the mountains of Siuna in the midst of the war between 1981 and 1900 we faced daily dangers. We ran into both armies, those of the government and those of the contras, and had to know how to talk and explain to each of them. We frequently had to advocate for threatened and sometimes kidnapped peasants accused by one side or the other. Amid combats, mines, ambushes and deaths, we learned the profound significance of those who say “war is sad.”
I’ve accompanied the rural communities in the Siuna area for 32 years. We worked during the war and also in peacetime. We’ve contributed to education and health projects, formed women’s groups and groups to bring the faith alive in communities and trained leaders. We built rural schools and organized community health programs. We’ve even helped a religious congregation of peasant women, the Missionaries of Christ, to develop.
Today I work in the Mulukukú parish, where we’ve built a rural educational center. I live with six sisters of the Missionaries of Christ and together we’ve developed programs that mainly help peasant women. We want to better the education in rural schools and extend health care to the most distant communities. I also teach in a Montessori preschool, help the health promoters and follow carefully the spiritual education and development of the Missionaries of Christ.
In all these years we’ve tried to respond to whatever need has come along. This gives me great satisfaction. For me, the main success in my life has been to learn from the poor in everyday life, share with them and deepen my faith in “the God of the poor who liberates and guides his people.”
Mónica, 80, Josephine Sisters:
“The sick inspire me to fight”I was born in El Salvador. I knew since I was a child that my vocation was to serve the poorest. I was 22 when I decided to be a nun. Before that I had worked as a social worker and very much appreciated my experience caring for the sick and terminally ill. I’m also a nurse. I came to Nicaragua to work in the Antiguo Hospital in Granada. What was most important to me was to be with those most in need.
When I arrived, the Nicaraguan sisters of my congregation welcomed me and I felt strong affection from them. I felt at home. Nicaragua’s political situation was difficult so I stayed out of those critical episodes, but I was never afraid during the revolution—neither before nor after. I had already seen guerrilla warfare, social protests, strikes and stoppages in El Salvador. We already knew we had similar problems and suffered from similar illnesses in our area. All of us in Central America knew about dictatorships intimately.
I left Nicaragua in 1979 in order to do service in the United States. I thought I would be back the same year but I wasn’t able to return until 1985 because of the very tense political situation between the United States and Nicaragua. I lived very close to the war, taking care of the wounded during the eighties, but since we were only serving the people and not looking for trouble, we ran no risk. We also worked in the poorest neighborhoods in Managua in those same years. Despite political avatars, natural disasters, the 1972 earthquake and Hurricane Mitch, I’ve always been able to work in the Lord’s vineyard, giving my all to the service of human beings and thus building God’s great social work.
I’m now retired but I still work with the San José School of El Jubileo Church in Jorge Dimitrov, one of Managua’s most dangerous neighborhoods. All my life I’ve always felt stronger than my social circumstances. Even now the sick are the ones who inspire me to fight for a better world. I go help people in need and being near those who need me is my daily inspiration.
Justina, 55, Little Sisters of the Assumption:
“Helping poor girls is gratifying and enlightening”I was born in Risaralda, Colombia. Since childhood my desire was to give my life to the Lord by serving my brothers and sisters. Throughout my life my major satisfactions have been to offer help to others in need.
I’ve liked this country ever since I arrived, for the simplicity of the people. I started working in San Juan del Rio Coco. Our work was to run the parish there. Since there was no priest, we religious sisters taught the Delegates of the Word, the section leaders, catechists and everyone who worked in the church. We did everything—prepared more than a thousand children for first communion, built a parish hall, because there wasn’t one, and made improvements throughout the parish.
I never felt afraid of the country’s political situation. Only once did I feel threatened but not because of politics. It was in October 1999, when they announced that a tropical storm called Katrina would pass through our area. I trembled when I thought of where we could run because our house was very rundown. But the storm crossed into Honduras and got weaker. We breathed a sigh of relief. I was in San Juan del Rio Coco for eight years then came to Managua.
One becomes discouraged at moments but the Lord and the community always give us heart to keep working for others. I’m an educator and am now working with girls who are at high risk due to economic issues, sexual abuse and physical mistreatment. They are poor girls. To help them and contribute to their education and development is one of my greatest joys. It’s gratifying and enlightening work.
Emilia, 86, Daughters of María Auxiliadora:
“My politics are the Lord’s Prayer”I was born in Padua, Italy. Since I was little I went to Mass every day either on foot or by bicycle traveling the three kilometers that separated my house in the town from the parish. Ever since I was small I wanted to become a nun. At the age of 13 I entered into the life. At 21 years of age I left the port of Genoa for America.
First I worked in Costa Rica and then three years in Honduras, which is where I eventually learned to speak Spanish. I had degrees in a variety of things because a nun must be well informed and prepared but my specialty was child psychology because I have a soft spot for children. Even though I spoke to the Honduran children in Italian, they understood me. Later I taught religion classes to the first grade girls. I prepared my lessons in Spanish but when I’d finished delivering them I didn’t know how to say anything else to them. The girls were so good that they told me to say it in Italian since the two languages are so similar. They helped me translate and that’s how I was able to learn Spanish.
Later I was sent to Nicaragua. They warned me that I would suffer a lot because of the terrible heat here. But I said that if the Nicaraguans were strong and could stand such tremendous heat all year long, I could too. And I did.
I’ve always been content in Nicaragua. I’ve never encountered problems working with Nicaragua’s poor children. Nicaraguans are very good and affectionate. They’re also very generous. You ask a favor of a Nicaraguan and they’ll help you immediately. I don’t get involved with politics. My politics are the Lord’s Prayer. I’ve spent 60 years in Nicaragua and I have to say that Nicaragua has been good for me and I’ve been good for Nicaragua.
Ernestina, 39 years old, Oblates of Divine Love:
“I find myself among the poor”I was born in Cameroon and studied there until my second year of college. I did my formal religious training in Italy. I took some courses in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, but European life didn’t satisfy me. I felt I needed to develop my vocation in less comfortable surroundings than those of Europe and I chose to come to Central America. And in Central America I chose Nicaragua.
I finished by studies in theology and pedagogy here in Nicaragua and now I’m studying psychology. I’ve always accompanied my studies and personal development with social work and service to the poorest. I came with a mission, with the idea of serving the poorest. Working with the poor fills me because I consider myself on the same social rung as they are. The poor tend to let themselves be helped because they accept their problems and want to improve themselves. They seek help and I feel I can help them. And by helping them I find myself in them.
I worked for several years in Masaya where my greatest satisfaction was the building of an excellent school called “The Sacred Heart of Jesus.” It has all the good teaching materials that any good school should have. We succeeded in establishing this school thanks to an important exchange with my US friends who donated materials and many economic resources. I worked closely with many children there, in their first communion, learning the catechism and in baptisms… I also help them with nutrition and everything they need to live and develop and grow: books, shoes, notebooks, rice, beans… whatever it was they needed.
I like Nicaragua. It’s a beautiful country, similar to mine, although the culture in Cameroon is a bit different than here. I’ve been working in Nicaragua almost 12 years and I’ve learned a lot about the people. They have a jovial, generous, affectionate and courageous spirit. It’s a simple country like mine and we foreigners are welcomed. I see social models that are very similar here and in Africa.
The food, clothing, happiness, spontaneous and dynamic Nicaraguan expressions are magnetic and remind me of people in my country. It doesn’t matter if a Nicaraguan is poor or doesn’t have food, his joy for life is reflected in his face and this is very beautiful. Nicaraguans are very expressive and it’s contagious.
María Paz, 74, Crusades of the Church Missionary:
“I feel a part of the neighborhood”I was born in Valladolid on the day the civil war in Spain ended. I’m from the countryside and was born into a humble family during the very difficult post-war period. At that time anyone who studied in town could only get through grade school and only those with more resources went to the cities to continue their studies.
I decided to be a nun in order to be with the people and be able to contribute my small grain of sand to the less fortunate communities. To work with the poor seemed to me to be a broader and more enriching life than to have a family. And thanks to this decision my life has been broad and rich and I have known many people in many countries.
I arrived in Nicaragua 25 years ago. I was well received. At the beginning I worked very closely in Managua’s eastern barrios: Nueva Libia and La URSS. Since 1988 I’ve worked in the Rene Cisneros barrio. Although we’re daughters of obedience, when we’re assigned a position we can accept it or ask to leave. I’ve decided to stay in Nicaragua because I already feel a part of the neighborhood and I feel the whole neighborhood community is my large family.
In the work we do in our order we have a big advantage—we don’t work with any parish. We organize the pastoral work with the Jesuits but we nuns are the ones who decide everything we want to do while always looking out for the good of the neighborhood. No one in the Church or in politics puts limits on us. We have felt free. We have just decided to build a chapel by ourselves without asking permission from anyone. We give communion to the sick, prepare those being confirmed, give Bible classes, meet with the youth and the elderly and everyone, and, thank God, we don’t have to give an accounting to anyone. We are independent and also self-sustaining.
“Our doors are always open”The greatest satisfaction I feel is when I see families and especially young people whom we have known since they were children who are now professionals, studying with scholarships and moving ahead in their lives. We now have nice music programs and the children are growing up with music from the time they’re little and this keeps them out of the streets where there’s juvenile delinquency. My great satisfaction is to see them get an education and have the desire to have a respectable job in society and better themselves… and they succeed.
I’ve been held up in the street, they’ve put a pistol to my head, but I never felt in danger because I’m always with the Lord. This hasn’t stopped me from traveling the streets nor have I thought about leaving the barrio. At 10 and 11 pm we always have the doors to our house open. The people tell us that someday something’s going to happen to us, but I feel very safe in the neighborhood. They’re my family. I think it’s very important to keep our house open so anyone can enter. They come here at all hours. They come to ask us something, to consult us, to tell us something or be with us. People know they can come and we’re here to receive them. We try to give the poor a sense of safety, hope and encouragement and they understand this and it elevates them and strengthens them.
Felicia, 76, Teresian Sisters:
“Serving from sunrise to sunset makes me happy”I’m Cuban and I studied nursing. I decided to be a nun to serve the Lord and other people, especially the most needy, who are Jesus’ favorites.
I arrived in Nicaragua in 1962. They sent me to work with orphaned girls in the Alegría Shelter, now located in Granada. I worked there for eight years. In 1969, together with another sister, we moved to the Rene Schick barrio in Managua. In the midst of multiple problems we succeeded in founding the free clinic and educational center in this marginalized neighborhood; it’s called “Enrique de Ossó.” We started with two tents. We wanted to respond to the neediest population.
In 1973 they moved me to Chichigalpa to work on the San Antonio sugar plantation, still serving the health needs of the peasants in the countryside. I was there for 18 years in the rural schools and traveling clinics that cared for the sugar cane workers and their families. The first insurrection against Somoza affected us on the sugar plantation before 1978; we were under fire from all kinds of artillery. The final war against Somoza found me in Managua in the Teresian School, which was like a refuge. I worked taking care of the wounded with 12 volunteer doctors who were our friends. Many people came seeking our help and asking that we cure them but they were afraid and didn’t want anyone to know they were wounded.
I returned to Reparto Schick in 1990. The project we had started in the late sixties had continued to grow. Now we have 1,500 students—both girls and boys—in the classes. The clinic takes care of between 100 and 120 people each day, offering dental, laboratory and pharmacy services in addition to general consultations. We have received the support of the Ministry of Health, business friends and international organizations. When medical brigades arrive in Nicaragua from Spain and the United States, I do all the paperwork and arrangements so they can enter the country.
I try to care for the patients with something more than just medical services, seeking comprehensive care for their needs, including finding resources for their treatments. We also provide home care with the financial support of our Danish friends, who provide me the necessary doctors to visit the elderly poor. These doctors, together with a nurse, travel on motorcycle to 20 neighborhoods in a well-organized manner, seeing between 20 and 24 patients a day with a variety of chronic diseases.
We also have a housing project and have already built 20 small houses in the neighborhood with the help of a US couple that lives in Nicaragua and supports our work. This year we’ll build four more houses. This couple also helps us with scholarships, medicine, clothes and other donations. In addition, the female students in our school in Managua have organized a project called Teresian Women in Action and do fundraising events here and in Miami to raise money to support our work.
I’ve always felt very happy and fulfilled serving the neediest from sunrise to sunset, without limits. I never think about whether people will thank me but I’m lucky because Nicaraguans are very hospitable and loving. Nicaragua is like my second country. I liked this country from the very start and, as the song says, I consider myself “pura pinolera por gracias de Dios,” pure Nicaraguan by God’s grace.
They speak in a low
but powerful voice A nun’s life can be very hard, for many reasons. But God crossed the path of these admirable women dedicated to others and the daily problems they have confronted haven’t deterred them in their mission. They don’t even mention the problems. The satisfaction of what they’ve done weighs more for them.
The testimonies of these eight sisters, who represent hundreds, show an unshakeable vocation. They remind us that, even in the 21st century, other-world workers are dedicated to community service, to serving a country that has always depended on the help of other countries in order to keep surviving, a deeply religious country that accepts help and doesn’t stop fighting for a better future. A country that’s like a large orphanage, clinic or shelter or an extended neighborhood full of shortages, needs and pain to which these courageous women have responded for many years. Nicaragua owes them a lot; it owes them something very valuable that they refuse to charge.
In the midst of the patriarchy that dominates the Catholic Church, these women have made themselves heard through their daily actions. They speak in a low voice but one with a powerful and persistent echo. They will be remembered as artisans of justice by the children who one day will be professionals or by the mothers who one day will be grateful grandmothers or by the elderly who one day will die in peace, thanks to their presence and their words of hope. Thanks to their commitment.
William Grigsby Vergara is a writer.
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