ABSTRACT
His hands shook uncontrollably as with great difficulty he lighted the first of countless cigarettes and in a hoarse whisper asked me to record our conversation by battery power, to avoid the risk of electrocution by Sandinista spies! Rector of the Seminario Menor on the outskirts of Managua, confidant of Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, bitter enemy of the government, and acrimonious foe of the popular church, Monsignor Mondragón has placed himself at the center of religious and political controversy.
This ardent anti-Sandinista and zealous defender of ultraconservative Catholicism was once an active opponent of Somoza and a socially progressive priest. What had happened to bring about such a reversal? The answer emerged as a strange combination of Father Mondragón’s own personal development and various external circumstances, especially the the growing “threats” of Marxism and of liberation theology.
Monsignor Mondragón relates here the story of his childhood in Granada; his studies at the national seminary and in Mexico and Chile; his work as a priest; his wholehearted embrace of United States policy in Nicaragua; and, with unrestrained emotion, his peculiar perspective on his encounters with government security.
