ABSTRACT
From the moment the Ronald Reagan administration came to office in 1981 it devoted considerable attention and energy to the accentuation of religious tension and the denunciation of alleged religious persecution in Nicaragua. To understand how an ultraconservative administration in Washington was able to use religion and the religious issue as a weapon against Nicaragua we must first examine the history of religion in that country before and after the Sandinista Front of National Liberation victory in 1979. In many senses the nature of Catholic religious institutions and religiosity in Nicaragua in the 1960s was not unlike the situation elsewhere in Latin America. By the time of the revolutionary victory, the Catholic grass roots and revolutionary movement had merged into one powerful expression of popular will. The treatment of other Protestant groups also belied the alarmist picture of religious persecution so prevalent in the United States.
