Ernesto Cardenal is dead. The priest, the Poet, and the Ex-Minister in the left-revolutionary government of Nicaragua, died on Sunday at the age of 95 years in Managua to heart and kidney failure, said a close relative.

suspended Because of his political activism by the Vatican for more than three decades, was Cardenal recently a sharp critic of the left-wing government. Cardenal was one of the most prominent liberation theologians of Latin America. After the Revolution, he was from 1979 to 1987, Minister of culture of the Sandinista government under Daniel Ortega.

His political commitment brought him into conflict with the Church. As Pope John Paul II in 1983, visited the Central American country, was kneeling Cardenal at the airport of Managua in front of him. However, the Pontiff rebuked the priest, with a dismissive movement of the hand.

A Catholic priest as a left revolutionary? The fit is not fighting at the time for the liberation of the Communist Eastern bloc, the Pope from Poland at all. Swayed Cardenal did not, however.

opponent of the dictator Somoza

The political commitment of the on 20. January 1925 in Nicaragua's Granada-born Cardenal goes back a long way: he participated in the 1954 to the "April Revolution" against the dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia. The coup plans were prematurely betrayed, many friends Cardenal's lost their lives.

Three years later he began his novitiate at the Trappist monastery in Gethsemany/Kentucky (USA), between 1961 and 1965, he studied theology in Guernavaca (Mexico) and La Ceja/Medellin (Colombia).

In this time emerged also the "Psalms", a master work of the poet Cardenal, the 1980 peace prize of the German book trade was awarded. After his ordination in Managua, he went in 1966 to the Nicaragua belonging to Solentiname Islands where he founded a Christian commune, where he also wrote his famous work "the gospel of the farmers of Solentiname".

speaker of the FSLN

in the October 1977 coup plans against Somozas second son were, went Cardenal to exile designed, and was speaker of the FSLN, the Sandinista national liberation front. In 1979, after the population hated President was driven from office, the liberation theologian and man of letters, Minister of culture of the country. This office he held until 1987, when the Ministry was finally dissolved on grounds of cost. In 1988, he initiated together with the Austrian actor Dietmar Schönherr, the international culture and development project "Casa de los tres mundos" in his native city of Granada.

To the FSLN Cardenal was because of the authoritarian leadership style of party leader Daniel Ortega is increasingly at a distance, before it finally came in 1994 to the break, and he resigned from the party.

sharp critic of Ortega's

After Ortega's return to the presidency in 2007, was Cardenal is one of the sharpest critics of the authoritarian rule. The PEN-Club, defendant repression against the author, the authorities admitted in the year 2009 to be the cultural center on the island of Mancarron.

on the Occasion of his 85. Birthday was Cardenal in 2010, disillusioned. "There is nothing left of the Revolution," he said.

The Poet Ernesto Cardenal

After his break with the Sandinistas, Cardenal found more time to Write, among other things, the Poem "Cantico Cosmico" (dt. "Songs of the universe", 1995). Really successful only in his earlier works "Psalms" (1969, dt were in German Translation. 1979), and "The book of love" (1985). The Nobel prize for literature remained Cardenal denied, but he received in the high age of a number of prestigious literary prizes such as the Ibero-American poetry prize Pablo Neruda (2009) and the Reina Sofia prize for Iberoamerican poetry (2012).

In the old age, he was allowed to close with the Roman Catholic Church of peace, however, until after the end of the Pontificates of John Paul II (2005) and his successor Benedict XVI (2013), which had as a long-time prefect of the congregation for faith and doctrine major role in the sanctioning of Cardenal's.

On the 17. February 2019 has been released a letter from Pope Francis to Ernesto Cardenal, in which he informed them about the lifting of the ban on the exercise of the priestly office. At that time he was already seriously ill. On Sunday he died in Managua 95 years of age, a severe heart and kidney ailments. (chk/sda)

Created: 02.03.2020, 03:18 PM