WHEN the news came through in 1970 that Miguel Obando y Bravo had been appointed Archbishop of Managua,the capital of Nicaragua, a journalist from La Prensa was despatched to find him. It was not an easy task. He was not in his house in Matagalpa, and of which he was then auxiliary bishop. But after fording fast rivers,trekking through forest and braving mountain roads, the journalist found him. He was mounted on a mule, and in a wide sombrero and rough riding trousers,making his usual rounds of the diocese. The only trace of priestliness lay in the spectacles gleaming on his broad, dismal mestizo face, and the high-collared white jacket straining its buttons across his boxer’s chest.
The new archbishop saw himself as a priest of the common people,a trustworthy Salesian (for that was his formation) carrying out the Catholic church’s “option for the destitute”. He had been born destitute himself, in a camp external the shabby ranching-and-mining town of La Libertad in...
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Source: economist.com